tT 





£E R IN S M US 
BY. 
J. HUIZINGA 








he rea PO ae 





GREAT HOLLANDERS 
Edited by EpwaArpD W. BOK 


ERASMUS 


Paks 









GREAT HOLLANDERS 
Edited by EDWARD W. BOK 


~ 
TOeical stu 
KERASMUS 


BY 
J. HUIZINGA 


PROFESSOR OF HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF LEYDEN, 
NETHERLANDS 


WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 
THE EDITOR 


CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 
NEW YORK - LONDON 
1924 


Corrricar, 1924, Br 
‘CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 





Printed in the United States of America 









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yy A 
Ox.) \) 
Sof ey 
—s ip 


NOTE 


The translation of this book from the Dutch manuscript 
has been made by Mr. F. Hopman of Leyden. 





TO P. 8. AND H. M. ALLEN, 
THE AUTHOR, 


In dedicating this book to you I feel as though I were 
offering you a bunch of flowers picked in your own gar- 
den. My sole excuse is that you have enclosed the whole 
field. Nobody nowadays can enter upon the study of 
Erasmus without walking along the paths of your Opus 
Epistolarum Erasmt, that model of scholarly editing, and 
much more than that: a true historical thesaurus of all 
that appertains to the great spiritual movements of the 
age of Humanism and of the Reformation. The student 
of Erasmus feels safe, so long as you guide him with your 
sure and accurate information; when he comes to the tracts 
not yet trimmed by your patient labours, he still sees a 
wilderness before him. 

In writing a short life of Erasmus the chief difficulty is 
to avoid losing oneself in the immense wealth of subject- 
matter. It needs continual self-limitation and the omis- 
sion of facts that will scarcely bear omission. You will 
undoubtedly miss here more than you find. Only by keep- 
ing carefully to the point, which means to Erasmus him- 
self, have I been able to meet the requirements of a well- 
knit composition. A few lines had to suffice for each of 
the great events which form the background of Erasmus’ 
life. All his friends and foes, so familiar to you, have 
had to remain in the shadow. Even Thomas More, Peter 
Gilles, Froben, and Beatus Rhenanus could only be touched 
upon in passing, not to speak of Hutten, Budaeus, Pirk- 
heimer, Beda and so many others. 

One thing grieves me: that you are sure to find my 


opinion of Erasmus too unfavourable. I could only pre- 
vil 


sent him as I saw him, still I am ready to admit that, 
perhaps, after all has been said, your more sympathising 
judgment must be the truer one, because it is founded 
on the knowledge and the love of a life-work. 

To revert once more to my metaphor: I shall be con- 
tent, if you find here some flowers arranged in a way 
which may please you, or some herb whose virtue you did 
not know. 


Leypen, September, 1923. 


viii 


THE REASON FOR THIS SERIES 


It was only natural that, with the close of the Great 
War, and the opening of the reconstruction period, the 
attention of the people of the United States should be 
more strongly directed towards matters of international 
import. It is significant, however, that out of this in- 
terest there should have arisen a strong revival of a desire 
for knowledge of a people who remained neutral during the 
war. It is as if the American people had determined to 
renew the strong bond of kinship and friendliness which 
existed between them and the people of the Netherlands 
in the earlier days of the American republic. 

The establishment of a chair of Dutch history, ideals 
and literature at Columbia University; the formation of 
a Netherland-America Affiliation at New York City, and 
a similar organisation at The Hague; a proposed inter- 
change of professorships of American and Dutch univer- 
sities; the great awakening of American economic and 
financial interests in the Dutch possessions in the East 
and West Indies, as a result of the attention directed to 
the Netherlands Government as an imperial power of 
astonishing dimensions in the Far East, in the Conference 
for Limitation of Armament at Washington; the opening 
of the finest home of diplomacy at Washington in the new 
Royal Netherlands Legation; the creation of a Summer 
School for American Students at the University of Leyden 
next summer, at American behest,—all these elements 
have combined to focus a new interest in the history and 


men of that nation from which have come so many of 
ix 


x THE REASON FOR THIS SERIES 


the foundation-institutions of the republic of the United 
States. 

It seemed, therefore, to the publishers and editor of 
this series the appropriate occasion to group, for the first 
time in American historical literature, a few of those out- 
standing figures in the history of the Netherlands whose 
achievements not only made their own land great, but by 
their influence did so much to fashion and shape Ameri- 
can institutions of statesmanship, law, art, letters, philos- 
ophy, and religion. From the knowledge derived from 
such a source will come a new knowledge to many Ameri- 
cans of the sources and inspiration of their own institu- 
tions; and in addition they may gain a closer view of those 
wonderfully romantic figures whose influence gave to the 
world a new color and a thrill of hope in the centuries in 
which they lived, before the republic of the United States 
had been fashioned into its greatness as a nation. 


Tae EprIror. 


IN INTRODUCTION TO THIS VOLUME 


The great career of Erasmus has been chosen to open 
the series not only because of its intrinsic interest, but by 
reason of its familiarity, in part, to American students. I 
say, in part, because much has been learned about Erasmus 
in later years, and this material Professor Huizinga has 
drawn upon and used as a basis for his study of the great 
Rotterdam monk in this book. 

It is, therefore, an Erasmus brought up to modern rec- 
ords that we meet here, presenting a figure which stands 
out more sharply and clearer than ever as one of the great- 
est influences of his day. 


The reader will get from this book, I think, the strong 
feeling that here was a man of vast learning, sacred and 
secular, with whom scholarship was really a joyful pas- 
sion, and yet never did he allow himself to become the 
pedant or the dilettante—even in an age of dilettantism 
when sober Englishmen were wont to tie their shoe-strings 
in French fashion! Erasmus always remained the great 
human: he was the very soul of humanism: he was liked 
by all and popular in all lands where he traveled or lived. 
His was a delightful spirit of gentle wit. He was quick at 
satire, but yet, in the main, of gentle humor. He won 
with his sallies of humor rather than with his shafts of 
satire. And, gradually, as he traveled through the mo- 
rass of his time, men caught from him a new glimpse of 
the liberty of mind and an awakened desire for better 
things. He became the most sought-after man of his day: 
kings and universities alike implored his presence, until, 

Xl 


xii IN INTRODUCTION TO THIS VOLUME 


at the last, he nad stamped himself upon his age as the 
greatest spiritual authority of his time. He may not have 
directly influenced the Church to the extent he hoped, but 
he did contribute more than any figure in the sixteenth 
century to change the materialism of Europe to a spirit 
of idealism. Without the solid groundwork laid down by 
Erasmus in the early sixteenth century, the fresh start 
made by the human mind in the later years of that cen- 
tury and in the following hundred years might never have 
come to pass. 


This is the interesting personality which Professor 
Huizinga has portrayed and whose work he has analyzed 
in this book, and its successful presentation will make it 
seem entirely worthy of being the first glimpse which we 
shall get in this series of great Hollanders. 


Epwarp W. Box. 
MERION 
PENNSYLVANIA 
September 
1923 


ABBREVIATIONS USED IN THE 
FOOTNOTES 


A. = Allen, Opus Epistolarum Erasmi. The letters are 
quoted only by their number, the second figure de- 
notes the line, e. g., A. 16. 12 = Allen, vol. I, ep. 16, 
line 12, page 90. 


LB = Erasmus, Opera omnia in the Leyden edition, quoted 
by volume, column and part of the page, e. g., LB X 
1219 F = Opera, vol. X, column 1219, at the bottom. 


LBE = Third volume of the same, containing the Epis- 
tles, quoted by column (not by number). 





I 
CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YOUTH 


THE LOW COUNTRIES IN THE 15TH CENTURY—THE BUR- 
GUNDIAN POWER—CONNECTIONS WITH THE GERMAN 
EMPIRE AND WITH FRANCE—THE NORTHERN NETHER- 
LANDS OUTSKIRTS IN EVERY SENSE—MOVEMENT OF 
DEVOTIO MODERNA: BRETHREN OF THE COMMON LIFE 
AND WINDESHEIM MONASTERIES—ERASMUS’ BIRTH: 
1466—HIS RELATIONS AND NAME—AT SCHOOL AT GOUDA, 
DEVENTER AND BOIS-LE-DUC—HE TAKES THE VOWS: 
PROBABLY IN 1488. 

-When Erasmus was born, Holland had for about 
twenty years formed part of the territory which the 
dukes of Burgundy had succeeded in uniting under their 
dominion—that complexity of lands, half French in pop- 
ulation, like Burgundy, Artois, Hainault, Namur; half 
Dutch like Flanders, Brabant, Zealand, Holland. The 
appellation “Holland” was, as yet, strictly limited to 
the county of that name (the present provinces of North 
and South Holland), with which Zealand, too, had long 
sinee been united. The remaining territories which, to- 
gether with those last mentioned, make up the present 
kingdom of the Netherlands, had not yet been brought 
under Burgundian dominion, although the dukes had 
cast their eyes on them. In the bishopric of Utrecht, 
whose power extended to the regions on the far side of 
the river Ysel, Burgundian influence had already begun 
to make itself manifest. The projected conquest of 
Friesland was a political inheritance of the counts of 
Holland, who preceded the Burgundians. The duchy of 
Guelders, alone, still preserved its independence invio- 


1 


2 ERASMUS 


late, being more closely connected with the neigh- 
bouring German territories, and consequently with the 
Empire itself. 

All these lands—about this time they began to be re- 
garded collectively under the name of “Low Countries 
by the Sea”—had in most respects the character of “out- 
skirts.” The authority of the German Emperors had for 
some centuries been little more than imaginary. Holland 
and Zealand hardly shared the dawning sense of a na- 
tional German union. They had too long looked to 
France in matters political. Since 1299 a French-speak- 
ing dynasty, that of Hainault, had ruled Holland. Even 
the house of Bavaria that succeeded it about the middle 
of the 14th century had not restored closer contact with 
the Empire, but had itself, on the contrary, early become 
Gallicized, attracted as it was by Paris and soon twined 
about by the tentacles of Burgundy to which it became 
linked by means of a double marriage. 

The northern half of the Low Countries were “out- 
“skirts” also in ecclesiastical and cultural matters. 
Brought over rather late to the cause of Christianity (the 
end of the 8th century), they had, as borderlands, re- 
mained united under a single bishop: the bishop of 
Utrecht. The meshes of ecclesiastical organization were 
wider here than elsewhere. They had no university. 
' Paris remained, even after the designing policy of the 
Burgundian dukes had founded the university of Louvain 
in 1425, the centre of doctrine and science for the north- 
ern Netherlands. From the point of view of the wealthy 
towns of Flanders and Brabant, now the heart of the 
Burgundian possessions, Holland and Zealand formed a 
wretched little country of boatmen and peasants. Chiv- 


CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YOUTH 3 


alry, which the dukes of Burgundy attempted to invest 
with new splendour, had but moderately thrived among 
the nobles of Holland. The Dutch had not enriched 
courtly literature, in which Flanders and Brabant zeal- 
ously strove to follow the French example, by any con- 
tribution worth mentioning. 

Whatever was coming up in Holland flowered unseen; * 
it was not of a sort to attract the attention of Christen- 
dom. It was a brisk navigation and trade, mostly tran- 
sit trade, by which the Hollanders already began to 
emulate the German Hansa, and which brought them 
into continual contact with France and Spain, England 
and Scotland, Scandinavia, North Germany and the 
Rhine from Cologne upward. It was herring fishery, a 
humble trade, but the source of great prosperity,—a 
rising industry, shared by a number of small towns. 

Not one of those towns in Holland and Zealand, 
neither Dordrecht nor Leyden, Haarlem, Middelburg, 
Amsterdam, could compare with Ghent, Bruges, Lille, 
Antwerp or Brussels in the south. It is true that also 
in the towns of Holland the highest products of the 
human mind germinated, but those towns themselves 
were still too small and too poor to be centres of art 
and science. The most eminent men were irresistibly 
drawn to one of the great foci of secular and ecclesias- 
tical culture. Sluter, the great sculptor, went to Bur- 
gundy, took service with the dukes, and bequeathed no 
specimen of his art to the land of his birth. Dirk Bouts, 
the artist of Haarlem, removed to Louvain, where his 
best work is preserved; what was left at Haarlem has 
perished. At Haarlem, too, and earlier, perhaps, than 
anywhere else, obscure experiments were being made in 


v2 


Y 


4 ERASMUS 


that great art, craving to be brought forth, which was 
to change the world: the art of printing. 

There was yet another characteristic spiritual phe- 
nomenon, which originated here and gave its peculiar 
stamp to life in these countries. It was a movement 
designed to give depth and fervour to religious life; 
started by a burgher of Deventer, Geert Groote, toward 
the end of the 14th century. It had embodied itself in 
two closely connected forms—the fraterhouses, where 
the brethren of the Common Life lived together with- 
out altogether separating from the world, and the con- 
gregation of the monastery of Windesheim, of the order 
of the regular Augustinian canons. Originating in the 
regions on the banks of the Ysel, between the two small 
towns of Deventer and Zwolle, and so on the outskirts 
of the diocese of Utrecht, this movement soon spread, 
eastward to Westphalia, northward to Groningen and 
the Frisian country, westward to Holland proper. Fra- 
terhouses were erected everywhere and monasteries of 
the Windesheim congregation were established or affili- 
ated. The movement was spoken of as “modern devo- 
tion,” Devotio moderna. It was rather a matter of sen- 
timent and practice than of definite doctrine. The truly 
Catholic character of the movement had early been 
acknowledged by the church authorities. Sincerity and 
modesty, simplicity and industry, and, above all, con- 
stant ardour of religious emotion and thought, were its 
objects. Its energies were devoted to tending the sick 
and other works of charity, but especially to instruction 
and the art of writing. It is in this that it especially 
differed from the revival of the Franciscan and Domin- 
ican orders of about the same time, which turned to 


CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YOUTH 5 


preaching. The Windesheimian and the Hieronymian 
(as the brethren of the Common Life were also called) 
exerted their crowning activities in the seclusion of the 
schoolroom and the silence of the writing cell. The 
schools of the brethren soon drew pupils from a wide 
area. In this way the foundations were laid, both here 
in the northern Netherlands and in lower Germany, for 
a generally diffused culture among the middle classes; a 
culture of a very narrow, strictly ecclesiastical nature, 
indeed, but which for that very reason was fit to per- 
meate broad layers of the people. 

What the Windesheimians themselves produced in the 
way of devotional literature is chiefly limited to edifying 
booklets and biographies of their own members; writings 
which were distinguished rather by their pious tenor and 
sincerity than by daring or novel thoughts. 

But of them all, the greatest was that immortal work 
of Thomas a Kempis, Canon of Saint Agnietenberg, near 
Zwolle, the Imitatio Christt. 

Foreigners visiting these regions north of the Scheldt 
and the Meuse, laughed at the rude manners and the 
deep drinking of the inhabitants, but they also men- 
tioned their sincere piety. These countries were already, 
what they have ever remained, somewhat contemplative 
and self-contained, better adapted for speculating on the 
world and for reproving it than for astonishing it with 
dazzling wit. 


Rotterdam and Gouda, situated upward of twelve 
miles apart in the lowest region of Holland, an extremely 
watery region, were not among the first towns of the 
county. They were small country towns, ranking after 


Vw 


6 ERASMUS 


Dordrecht, Haarlem, Leyden and rapidly rising Amster- 
dam. They were not centres of culture. Erasmus was 
born at Rotterdam on the 27th of October, most prob- 
ably in the year 1466. The illegitimacy of his birth has 
thrown a veil of mystery over his descent and kinship. 
It is possible that Erasmus himself learned the circum- 
stances of his coming into the world only in his later 
years. Acutely sensitive of the taint in his origin, he did 
more to veil the secret than to reveal it. The picture 
which he painted of it in his ripe age was romantic and 
pathetic. He imagined that his father when a young 
man made love to a girl, a physician’s daughter, 
in the hope of marrying her. The parents and brothers 
of the young fellow, indignant, tried to persuade him to 
take holy orders. The young man fled before the child 
was born. He went to Rome and made a living by 
copying. His relations sent him false tidings that his 
beloved had died; out of grief he became a priest and 
devoted himself to religion altogether. Returned to his 
native country he discovered the deceit. He abstained 
from all contact with her whom he now could no longer 
marry, but took great pains to give his son a liberal edu- 
cation. The mother continued to care for the child, till an 
early death took her from him. The father soon fol- 
lowed her to the grave. To Erasmus’ recollection he was 
only twelve or thirteen years old when his mother died. 
It seems to be practically certain that her death did not 
occur before 1483, when, therefore, he was already seven- 
teen years old. His sense of chronology was always re- 
maarkably ill developed. 

Unfortunately it is beyond doubt that Erasmus him- 
self knew, or had known, that not all particulars of 


CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YOUTH 7 


this version were correct. In all probability his father 
was already a priest at the time of the relationship to 
which he owed his life; in any case it was not the im- 
patience of a betrothed couple, but an irregular alliance 
of long standing, of which a brother, Peter, had been 
born three years before. 

We can only vaguely discern the outlines of a numer- 
ous and commonplace middle-class family. The father 
had nine brothers, who were all married. The grand- 
parents on his father’s side and the uncles on his mother’s 
side attained to a very great age. It is strange that a 
host of cousins—their progeny—has not boasted of a 
family connection with the great Erasmus. Their de- 
scendants have not even been traced. What were their 
names? The fact that in burgher circles family names 
had, as yet, become anything but fixed, makes it difficult 
to trace Erasmus’ kinsmen. Usually people were called 
by their own and their father’s name; but it also hap- 
pened that the father’s name became fixed and adhered 
to the following generation. Erasmus calls his father 
Gerard, his brother Peter Gerard, while a papal letter 
styles Erasmus himself Erasmus Rogerii. Possibly the © 
father was called Roger Gerard or Gerards. 

Although Erasmus and his brother were born at Rot- 
terdam, there is much that points to the fact that his 
father’s kin did not belong there, but at Gouda. At any 
rate they had near relatives at Gouda. 

Erasmus was his Christian name. There is nothing 
strange in the choice, although it was rather unusual. 
St. Erasmus was one of the fourteen Holy Martyrs, whose 
worship so much engrossed the attention of the multi- 
tude in the 15th century. Perhaps the popular belief 


8 ERASMUS 


that the intercession of Saint Erasmus conferred wealth, 
had some weight in choosing the name. Up to the time 
when he became better acquainted with Greek, he used 
the form Herasmus. Later on he regretted that he had 
not also given that name the more correct and melodious 
form Erasmius. On a few occasions he half jocularly 
called himself so, and his godchild, Johannes Froben’s 
son, always used this form. 

It was probably for similar aesthetic considerations 
that he soon altered the barbaric Rotterdammensis to 
Roterdamus, later Roterodamus, which he perhaps accen- 
tuated as a proparoxytone. Desiderius was an addition 
selected by himself, which he first used in 1496; it is 
possible that the study of his favourite author Jerome, 
among whose correspondents there is a Desiderius, sug- 
gested the name to him. When, therefore, the full form, 
Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus, first appears, in the 
second edition of the Adagia, published by Josse Badius 
at Paris in 1506, it is an indication that Erasmus, then 
forty years of age, had found himself. 


Circumstances had not made it easy for him to find 
his way. Almost in his infancy, when hardly four years 
old, he thinks, he had been put to school at Gouda, to- 
gether with his brother. He was nine years old when 
his father sent him to Deventer to continue his studies 
in the famous school of the chapter of St. Lebuin. His 
mother accompanied him. His stay at Deventer must 
have lasted, with an interval during which he was a choir 
boy in the minster at Utrecht, from 1475 to 1484. Eras- 
mus’ explicit declaration that he was 14 years old when 
he left Deventer may be explained by assuming that in 


CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YOUTH 9 


later years he confused his temporary absence from De- 
venter (when at Utrecht) with the definite end of his 
stay at Deventer. Reminiscences of his life there re- 
peatedly crop up in Erasmus’ writings. Those concern- 
ing the teaching he got inspired him with little gratitude; 
the school was still barbaric, then, he said; ancient 
medieval text books were used there of whose silliness 
and cumbrousness we can hardly conceive. Some of the 
masters were of the brotherhood of the Common Life. 
One of them, Johannes Synthen, brought to his task a 
certain degree of understanding of classic antiquity in its 
purer form. Toward the end of Erasmus’ residence Alex- 
ander Hegius was placed at the head of the school, a 
friend of the Frisian humanist, Rudolf Agricola, who on 
his return from Italy was gaped at by his compatriots as 
a prodigy. On festal days, when the rector made his 
oration before all the pupils, Erasmus heard Hegius; on 
one single occasion he listened to the celebrated “Agricola 
himself, which left a deep impression on his mind. 

His mother’s death of the plague that ravaged the 
town brought Erasmus’ schooltime at Deventer to a sud- 
den close. His father called him and his brother back to 
Gouda, only to die himself soon afterwards. He must 
have been a man of culture. For he knew Greek, had 
heard the famous humanists in Italy, had copied classie 
authors and left a library of some value. 

Erasmus and his brother were now under the protec- 
tion of three guardians whose care and intentions he 
afterwards placed in an unfavourable light. How far he 
exaggerated their treatment of him it is difficult to de- 
cide. That the guardians, among whom one Peter 
Winckel, schoolmaster at Gouda, occupied the principal 


10 ERASMUS 


place, had little sympathy with the new classicism, about 
which their ward already felt enthusiastic, need not 
be doubted. “If you should write again so elegantly, 
please to add a commentary,” the schoolmaster replied 
grumblingly to an epistle on which Erasmus, then four- 
teen years old, had expended much care. That the 
guardians sincerely considered it a work pleasing to God 
to persuade the youths to enter a monastery can no 
more be doubted than that this was for them the easiest 
way to get rid of their task. For Erasmus this pitiful 
business assumes the colour of a grossly selfish attempt 
to cloak dishonest administration; an altogether repre- 
hensible abuse of power and authority. More than this: 
in later years it obscured for him the image of his own 
brother, with whom he had been on terms of cordial in- 
timacy. 

Winckel sent the two young fellows, 21 and 18 years 
old, to school again, this time at Bois-le-Duc. There 
they lived in the Fraterhouse itself, to which the school 
was attached. There was nothing here of the glory that 
had shone about Deventer. The brethren, says Erasmus, 
knew of no other purpose than that of destroying all 
natural gifts, with blows, reprimands and severity, in 
order to fit the soul for the monastery. This, he thought, 
was just what his guardians were aiming at; although 
ripe for the university they were deliberately kept away 
from it. In this way more than two years were wasted. 

One of his two masters, one Rombout, who liked young 
Erasmus, tried hard to prevail on him to join the 
Brethren of the Common Life. In later years Erasmus 
occasionally regretted that he had not yielded; for the 


CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YOUTH 11 


brethren took no such irrevocable vows as were now in 
store for him. 

An epidemic of the plague became the occasion for 
the brothers to leave Bois-le-Duc and return to Gouda. 
Erasmus was attacked by a fever that sapped his power 
of resistance of which he now stood in such need. The 
guardians (one of the three had died in the meantime) 
now did their utmost to make the two young men enter 
a monastery. They had good cause for it, as they had 
ill administered the slender fortune of their wards, and, 
says Erasmus, refused to render an account. Later he 
saw everything connected with this dark period of his 
life in the most gloomy colours—except himself. Him- 
self he sees as a boy of not yet 16 years (it is nearly 
certain that he must have been 20 already) weakened by 
fever, but nevertheless resolute and sensible in refusing. 
He has persuaded his brother to fly with him and to go 
to a university. The one guardian is a narrow-minded 
tyrant, the other, Winckel’s brother, a merchant, a frivol- 
ous coaxer. Peter, the elder of the youths, yields first 
and enters the monastery of Sion, near Delft (of the 
order of the regular Augustinian canons), where the 
guardian had found a place for him. Erasmus resisted 
longer. Only after a visit to the monastery of Steyn or 
Hmmaus, near Gouda, belonging to the same order, 
where he found a schoolfellow from Deventer, who 
pointed out the bright side of monastic life to him, did 
Erasmus yield and enter Steyn, where soon after, prob- 
ably in 1488, he took the vows. 


II 
IN THE MONASTERY 


ERASMUS AS AN AUGUSTINIAN CANON AT STEYN—HIS 
FRIENDS—LETTERS TO SERVATIUS—HUMANISM IN THE 
MONASTERIES: LATIN POETRY—AVERSION TO CLOISTER- 
LIFE—HE LEAVES STEYN TO ENTER THE SERVICE OF 
THE BISHOP OF CAMBRAY: 140—JAMES BATT—ANTI- 
BARBARI—HE GETS LEAVE TO STUDY AT PARIS: 1495. 
In his later life—under the influence of the gnawing 

regret, which his monkhood and all the trouble he took 
to escape from it, caused him, the picture of all the 
events leading up to his entering the convent became 
distorted in his mind. Brother Peter, to whom he still 
wrote in a cordial vein from Steyn, became a worthless 
fellow, ever his evil spirit, a Judas. The schoolfellow 
whose advice had been decisive now appeared a traitor, 
prompted by self-interest, who himself had chosen con- 
vent-life merely out of laziness and the love of good 
cheer. 

The letters that Erasmus wrote from Steyn betray no 
vestige of his deep-seated aversion to monastic life, which 
afterwards he asks us to believe he had felt from the 
outset. We may, of course, assume that the supervision 
of his superiors prevented him from writing all that was 
in his heart, and that in the depths of his being there 
had always existed the craving for freedom and for more 
civilised intercourse than Steyn could offer. Still he must 
have found in the monastery some of the good things 
that his schoolfellow had led him to expect. That at 


12 


IN THE MONASTERY 13 


this period he should have written a Praise of Monastic 
Life, “to please a friend who wanted to decoy a cousin,” 
as he himself says, is one of those naive assertions, in- 
vented afterwards, of which Erasmus never saw the 
unreasonable quality. | 

He found at Steyn a fair degree of freedom, some 
food for an intellect craving for classic antiquity, and 
friendships with men of the same turn of mind. There 
were three who especially attracted him. Of the 
schoolfellow who had induced him to become a monk, 
we hear no more. His friends are Servatius Roger of 
Rotterdam, and William Hermans of Gouda, both his 
companions at Steyn, and the older Cornelius Gerard of 
Gouda, usually called Aurelius (a quasi-latinization of 
Goudanus), who spent most of his time in the monastery 
of Lopsen, near Leyden. With them he read and con- 
versed sociably and jestingly; with them he exchanged 
letters when they were not together. 

Out of the letters to Servatius there rises the picture 
of an Erasmus whom we shall never find again—a young 
man of more than feminine sensitiveness; of a languish- 
ing need for sentimental friendship. In writing to Serva- 
tius, Erasmus runs the whole gamut of an ardent lover. 
As often as the image of his friend presents itself to his 
mind tears break from his eyes. Weeping he re-reads his 
friend’s letter every hour. But he is mortally dejected 
and anxious, for the friend proves averse to this exces- 
sive attachment. What do you want from me? he asks. 
What is wrong with you? the other replies. Erasmus 
cannot bear to find that this friendship is not fully 
returned. “Do not be so reserved; do tell me what is 
wrong! I repose my hope in you alone; I have become 


14 ERASMUS 


yours so completely that you have left me nought of 
myself. You know my pusillanimity, which when it has 
no one on whom to lean and rest, makes me so desper- 
ate that life becomes a burden.” 

Let us remember this. Erasmus never again expresses 
himself so passionately. He has given us here the clue 
by which we may understand much of what he becomes 
in his later years. 

These letters have sometimes been taken as mere 
literary exercises; the weakness they betray and the 
complete absence of all reticence, seem to tally ill with 
his habit of cloaking his most intimate feelings which, 
afterwards, Erasmus never quite relinquishes. Dr. Allen, 
who leaves this question undecided, nevertheless inclines 
to regard the letters as sincere effusions, and to me they 
seem so, incontestably. This exuberant friendship ac- 
cords quite well with the times and the person. 

Sentimental friendships were as much in vogue in secu- 
lar circles during the 15th century as towards the end 
of the 18th century. Each court had its pairs of 
friends, who dressed alike, and shared room, bed and 
heart. Nor was this cult of fervent friendship restricted 
to the sphere of aristocratic life. It was among the spe- 
cific characteristics of the “devotio moderna,” as, for the 
rest, it seems from its very nature to be inseparably 
bound up with pietism. To observe one another with 
sympathy, to watch and note each other’s inner life, was 
a customary and approved occupation among the breth- 
ren of the Common Life and the Windesheim monks. 
And though Steyn and Sion were not of the Windesheim 
congregation, the spirit of the “devotio moderna” was 
prevalent there. 


IN THE MONASTERY 15 


As for Erasmus himself, he has rarely revealed the 
foundation of his character more completely than when 
he declared to Servatius: “My mind is such that I think 
nothing can rank higher than friendship in this life, 
nothing should be desired more ardently, nothing should 
be treasured more jealously.” A violent affection of a 
similar nature troubled him even at a later date when 
the purity of his motives was questioned. Afterwards he 
speaks of youth as being used to conceive a fervent 
affection for certain comrades. Moreover, the classic 
examples of friends, Orestes and Pylades, Damon and 
Pythias, Theseus and Pirithous, as also David and Jona- 
than, were ever present before his mind’s eye. A young 
and very tender heart, marked by many feminine traits, 
replete with all the sentiment and with all the imaginings 
of classic literature, who was debarred from love and 
found himself placed against his wish in a coarse and 
frigid environment, was likely to become somewhat ex- 
cessive in his affections. 

He was obliged to moderate them. Servatius would 
have none of so jealous and exacting a friendship and, 
probably at the cost of more humiliation and shame than 
appears in his letters, young Erasmus resigns himself, to 
be more guarded in expressing his feelings in the future. 
The sentimental Erasmus disappears for good and pres- 
ently makes room for the witty Latinist, who surpasses 
bis older friends, and chats with them about poetry and 
literature, advises them about their Latin style, and lec- 
tures them if necessary. 

The opportunities for acquiring the new taste for 
classic antiquity cannot have been so scanty at Deventer, 
and in the monastery itself, as Erasmus, afterwards, 


16 ERASMUS 


would have us believe, considering the authors he already 
knew at this time. We may conjecture, also, that the 
books left by his father, possibly brought by him from 
Italy, contributed to Erasmus’ culture, though it would 
be strange that, prone as he was to disparage his schools 
and his monastery, he should not have mentioned the 
fact. Moreover, we know that the humanistic knowledge 
of his youth was not exclusively his own, in spite of all 
he afterwards said about Dutch ignorance and obscurant- 
ism. Cornelius Aurelius and William Hermans likewise 
possessed it. 

In a letter to Cornelius he mentions the following 
authors as his poetic models—Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Juv- 
enal, Statius, Martial, Claudian, Persius, Lucan, Tibullus, 
Propertius. In prose he imitates Cicero, Quintilian, 
Sallust, and Terence, whose metrical character had not 
yet been recognised. Among Italian humanists he was 
especially acquainted with Lorenzo Valla, who on ac- 
count of his Elegantiae passed with him for the pioneer 
of “bonae literae”; but Filelfo, Aeneas Sylvius, Guarino, 
Poggio and others were also not unknown to him. In 
ecclesiastical literature he was particularly well read in 
Jerome. It remains remarkable that the education which 
Erasmus received in the schools of the “devotio mo- 
derna,” with their ultra-puritanical object, their rigid dis- 
cipline intent on breaking the personality, could produce 
such a mind as he manifests in his monastic period,— 
the mind of an accomplished humanist. He is only inter- 
ested in writing Latin verses and in the purity of his 
Latin style. We look almost in vain for piety in the 
correspondence with Cornelius of Gouda and William 
Hermans. They manipulate with ease the most difficult 


IN THE MONASTERY | 17 


Latin metres and the rarest terms of mythology. Their 
subject-matter is bucolic or amatory, and, if devotional, 
their classicism deprives it of the accent of piety. The 
prior of the neighbouring monastery of Hem, at whose 
request Erasmus sang the Archangel Michael, did not 
dare to paste up his sapphic ode: it was so “poetic,” he 
thought, as to seem almost Greek. In those days poetic 
meant classic. Erasmus himself thought he had made 
it so bald that it was nearly prose;—‘the times were so 
barren, then,” he afterwards sighed. 

These young poets felt themselves the guardians of a 
new light amidst the dullness and barbarism which op- 
pressed them. They readily believed each other’s pro- 
ductions to be immortal, as every band of youthful poets 
does, and dreamt of a future of poetic glory for Steyn 
by which it would vie with Mantua. Their environment 
of clownish, narrow-minded conventional divines—for as 
such they saw them—neither acknowledged nor encour- 
aged them. Erasmus’ strong propensity to fancy him- 
self menaced and injured tinged this position with the 
martyrdom of oppressed talent. To Cornelius he com- 
plains in fine Horatian measure of the contempt in 
which poetry was held; his fellow-monk orders him to 
let his pen, accustomed to writing poetry, rest. Con- 
suming envy forces him to give up making verses. A 
horrid barbarism prevails, the country laughs at the 
laurel-bringing art of high-seated Apollo; the coarse 
peasant orders the learned poet to write verses. “Though 
I had mouths as many as the stars that twinkle in the 
silent firmament on quiet nights, or as many as the roses 
that the mild gale of spring strews on the ground, 1 
could not complain of all the evils by which the sacred 


18 ERASMUS 


art of poetry is oppressed in these days. I am tired of 
writing poetry.” 

Cornelius made a dialogue of this effusion which highly 
pleased Erasmus. 

Though in this art nine-tenths may be rhetorical fic- 
tion and sedulous imitation, we ought not, on that ac- 
count, to undervalue the enthusiasm inspiring the young 
poets. Let us, who have mostly grown blunt to the 
charms of Latin, not think too lightly of the elation felt 
by one who after learning this language out of the most 
absurd primers and according to the most ridiculous 
methods, nevertheless discovered it in its purity, and 
afterwards came to handle it in the charming rhythm of 
some artful metre, in the glorious precision of its struc- 
ture and in all the melodiousness of its sound. 


Nec si quot placidis ignea noctibus 
Scintillant tacito sydera culmine, 
Nec si quot tepidum flante Favonio 
Ver suffundit humo rosas, 

Tot sint ora mihi... . 


Was it strange that the youth who could say this felt 
himself a poet?—or who, together with his friend, could 
sing of spring in a Melibean song of fifty distiches? Pe- 
dantic work, if you like, laboured literary exercises, and 
yet full of the freshness and the vigour which spring from 
the Latin itself. 

Out of these moods was to come the first comprehen- 
sive work that Erasmus was to undertake, the manuscript 
of which he was afterwards to lose, to recover in part, 
and to publish only after many years—the Antibarbari, 
which he commenced at Steyn, according to Dr. Allen. 


IN THE MONASTERY 19 


In the version in which eventually the first book of the 
Antibarbari appeared, it reflects, it is true, a somewhat 
later phase of Erasmus’ life, that which began after he 
had left the monastery; neither is the comfortable tone 
of his witty defence of profane literature any longer that 
of the poet at Steyn. But the ideal of a free and noble 
life of friendly intercourse and the uninterrupted study 
of the Ancients had already occurred to him within the 
convent walls. 

In the course of years those walls probably hemmed 
him in more and more closely. Neither learned and 
poetic correspondence nor the art of painting with which 
he occupied himself,* together with one Sasboud, could 
sweeten the oppression of monastic life and a narrow- 
minded, unfriendly environment. Of the later period of 
his life in the monastery, no letters at all have been pre- 
served, according to Dr. Allen’s carefully considered dat- 
ing. Had he dropped his correspondence out of spleen, 
or had his superiors forbidden him to keep it up, or are 
we merely left in the dark because of accidental loss? 
We know nothing about the circumstances and the frame 
of mind in which Erasmus was ordained on the 25th of 
April, 1492, by the bishop of Utrecht, David of Bur- 
gundy. Perhaps his taking holy orders was connected 
with his design to leave the monastery. He himself after- 
wards declared that he had but rarely read mass. He 
got his chance to leave the monastery when offered the 
post of secretary to the bishop of Cambray, Henry of 
Bergen. Erasmus owed this preferment to his fame as a 





1 Allen no, 16.12 cf. IV p. XX, and vide LB. IV 756, where surveying 
the years of his youth he also commemorates ‘“Pingere dum meditor 
tenueis sine corpore formas,”’ 


20 ERASMUS 


Latinist and a man of letters; for it was with a view to 
a journey to Rome, where the bishop hoped to obtain 
a cardinal’s hat, that Erasmus entered his service. The 
authorisation of the bishop of Utrecht had been obtained, 
and also that of the prior and the general of the order. 
Of course, there was no question yet of taking leave for 
good, since, as the bishop’s servant, Erasmus continued 
to wear his canon’s dress. He had prepared for his 
departure in the deepest secrecy. There is something 
touching in the glimpse we get of his friend and fellow- 
poet, William Hermans, waiting in vain outside of Gouda 
to see his friend just for a moment, when on his way 
south, he would pass the town. It seems there had been 
consultations between them as to leaving Steyn together, 
and Erasmus, on his part, had left him ignorant of his 
plans. William had to console himself with the literature 
that might be had at Steyn. 


Erasmus, then 25 years old, for in all probability the 
year when he left the monastery was 1493, now set foot 
on the path of a career that was very common and much 
coveted at that time: that of an intellectual in the 
shadow of the great. His patron belonged to one of the 
numerous Belgian noble families, which had risen in 
the service of the Burgundians and were interestedly de- 
voted to the prosperity of that house. The Glimes were 
lords of the important town of Bergen-op-Zoom, which, 
situated between the river Scheldt and the Meuse delta, 
was one of the links between the Northern and the 
Southern Netherlands. Henry, the bishop of Cambray, 
had just been appointed chancellor of the order of The 
Golden Fleece, the most distinguished spiritual dignity 


IN THE MONASTERY 21 


at court, which although now Hapsburg in fact, was still 
named after Burgundy. The service of such an impor- 
tant personage promised almost unbounded honour and 
profit. Many a man would under the circumstances, at 
the cost of some patience, some humiliation, and a certain 
laxity of principle, have risen even to be a bishop. But 
Erasmus was never a man to make the most of his 
situation. 

To serve the bishop proved rather a disappointment. 
Erasmus had to accompany him on his frequent migra- 
tions from one residence to another in Bergen, Brussels, 
or Mechlin. He was very busy, but the exact nature of 
his duties is unknown. The journey to Rome, the acme 
of things desirable to every divine or student, did not 
come off. The bishop, although taking a cordial interest 
in him for some months, was less accommodating than 
he had expected. And so we shortly find Erasmus once 
more in anything but a cheerful frame of mind. “The 
hardest fate,” he calls his own, which robs him of all his 
old sprightliness. Opportunities to study he has none. 
He now envies his friend William, who at Steyn in 
the little cell can write beautiful poetry, favored by his 
“lucky stars.” It befits him, Erasmus, only to weep and 
sigh; it has already so dulled his mind and withered 
his heart that his former studies no longer appeal to 
him. There is rhetorical exaggeration in this and we 
shall not take his pining for the monastery too seriously, 
but still it is clear that deep dejection had mastered him. 


Contact with the world of politics and ambition had | 


probably unsettled Erasmus. He never had any aptitude 
for it. The hard realities of life frightened and distressed 
him. When forced to occupy himself with them he saw 


22 7 ERASMUS 


nothing but bitterness and confusion about him. “Where 
is gladness or repose? Wherever I turn my eyes I only 
see disaster and harshness. And in such a bustle and 
clamour about me you wish me to find leisure for the 
work of the Muses?” 

Real leisure Erasmus was never to find during his life. 
All his reading, all his writing, he did hastily, “tumul- 
tuarie,” as he calls it repeatedly. Yet he must never- 
theless have worked with intensest concentration and an 
incredible power of assimilation. Whilst staying with 
the bishop he visited the monastery of Groenendael near 
Brussels, where in former times Ruysbroeck wrote. Pos- 
sibly Erasmus did not hear the inmates speak of Ruys- 
broeck and he would certainly have taken little pleasure 
in the writings of the great mystic. But in the library 
he found the works of St. Augustine and these he de- 
voured. The monks of Groenendael were surprised at 
his diligence. He took the volumes with him even to his 
bedroom. 

He occasionally found time to compose at this period. 
At Halsteren, near Bergen-op-Zoom, where the bishop 
had a country house, he revised the Antibarbari, begun 
at Steyn, and elaborated it in the form of a dialogue. It 
would seem as if he sought compensation for the agita- 
tion of his existence in an atmosphere of idyllic repose and 
cultured conversation. He conveys us to the scene (he 
will afterwards use it repeatedly) which ever remained the 
ideal pleasure of life to him: a garden or a garden house 
outside the town, where in the gladness of a fine day a 
small number of friends meet to talk over a simple meal 
or during a quiet walk, in Platonic serenity, about things 
of the mind. The personages whom he introduces, be- 


IN THE MONASTERY 23 


sides himself, are his best friends. They are the valued 
and faithful friend whom he got to know at Bergen, 
James Batt, schoolmaster and afterwards also clerk of 
that town, and his old friend William Hermans of Steyn, 
whose literary future he continued somewhat to promote. 
William, arriving unexpectedly from Holland, meets the 
others, who are later joined by the burgomaster of Ber- 
gen and the town physician. In a lightly jesting, placid 
tone they engage in a discussion about the appreciation 
of poetry and literature,—Latin literature. These are 
not incompatible with true devotion, as barbarous dull- 
ness wants us to believe. A cloud of witnesses is there 
to prove it, among them and above all St. Augustine, 
whom Erasmus had studied recently, and St. Jerome, 
with whom Erasmus had been longer acquainted and 
whose mind was, indeed, more congenial to him. Sol- 
emnly, in ancient Roman guise, war is declared on the 
enemies of classic culture. O, ye Goths, by what right 
do you occupy, not only the Latin provinces (the dis- 
ciplinae liberales are meant) but the capital, that is 
Latinity itself? 

It was Batt who, when his prospects with the bishop 
of Cambray ended in disappointment, helped to find a — 
way out for Erasmus. He himself had studied at Paris, | 
and thither Erasmus also hoped to go, now that Rome 
was denied him. The bishop’s consent and the promise of 
a stipend were obtained and Erasmus departed for the 
most famous of all universities, that of Paris, probably 
in the late summer of 1495. Batt’s influence and efforts 
had procured him this lucky chance. 


lil 
THE UNIVERSITY OF PARIS 


THE UNIVERSITY OF PARIS—TRADITIONS AND SCHOOLS OF 
PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY—THE COLLEGE OF MON- 
TAIGU—ERASMUS’ DISLIKE OF SCHOLASTICISM—RELA- 
TIONS WITH THE HUMANIST, ROBERT GAGUIN, 1495— 
HOW TO EARN A LIVING—FIRST DRAFTS OF SEVERAL 
OF HIS EDUCATIONAL WORKS—TRAVELLING TO HOL- 
LAND AND BACK—BATT AND THE LADY OF VEERE—TO 
ENGLAND WITH LORD MOUNTJOY: 1499. 

The University of Paris was, more than any other 
place in Christendom, the scene of the collision and strug- 
gle of opinions and parties. University life in the middle 
ages was in general tumultuous and agitated. The 
forms of scientific intercourse themselves entailed an 
element of irritability; never-ending disputations, fre- 
quent elections, and rowdyism of the students. To those 
were added old and new quarrels of all sorts of orders, 
schools and groups. The different colleges contended 
among themselves, the secular clergy were at variance 
with the regular. The Thomists and the Scotists, to- 
gether called the Ancients, had been disputing at Paris 
for half a century with the Terminists, or Moderns, the 
followers of Ockam and Buridan. In 1482 some sort of 
peace was concluded between those two groups. Both 
schools were on their last legs, stuck fast in sterile tech- 
nical disputes, in systematizing and subdividing, a meth- 
od of terms and words by which science and philosophy 
benefited no longer. The theological colleges of the Do- 
minicans and Franciscans at Paris were declining; theo- 


24 


THE UNIVERSITY OF PARIS 25 


logical teaching was taken over by the secular colleges 
of Navarre and Sorbonne, but in the old style. 

The general traditionalism had not prevented humanism 
from penetrating also in Paris during the last quarter of 
the 15th century. Refinement of Latin style and the 
taste for classic poetry here, too, had their fervent cham- 
pions, just as revived Platonism, which had sprung up 
in Italy. The Parisian humanists were partly Italians as 
Girolamo Balbi and Fausto Andrelini, but at that time a 
Frenchman was considered their leader, Robert Gaguin, 
general of the order of the Mathurins or Trinitarians, 
diplomatist, French poet and humanist. Side by side 
with the new Platonism a clearer understanding of Aris- 
totle penetrated, which had also come from Italy. 
Shortly before Erasmus’ arrival Jacques Lefévre 
d’Etaples had returned from Italy, where he had visited 
the Platonists, such as Marsilio Ficino, Pico della Miran- 
dola, and Ermolao Barbaro, the reviver of Aristotle. 
Though theoretical theology and philosophy generally 
were conservative at Paris, yet here as well as else- 
where movements to reform the Church were not 
wanting. The authority of Jean Gerson, the University’s “ 
great chancellor (about 1400), had not yet been forgot- 
ten. But reform by no means meant inclination to 
depart from the doctrine of the Church; it aimed, in the 
first place, at restoration and purification of the monastic 
orders and afterwards at the extermination of abuses 
which the Church acknowledged and lamented as exist- 
ing within its fold. In that spirit of reformation of 
spiritual life the Dutch movement of the “devotio 
moderna” had recently begun to make itself felt, also, 
at Paris. The chief of its promoters was John Stan- 


26 ERASMUS 


donck of Mechlin, educated by the Brethren of the 
Common Life at Gouda and imbued with their spirit in 
its most rigorous form. He was an ascetic more austere 
than the spirit of the Windesheimians, strict indeed but 
yet moderate, required; far beyond ecclesiastical circles 
his name was proverbial on account of his abstinence;— 
he had definitely denied himself the use of meat. As 
provisor of the college of Montaigu he had instituted the 
most stringent rules there, enforced by chastisement for 
the slightest faults. To the college he had annexed a 
home for poor scholars, where they lived in a semi-mo- 
nastic community. 

To this man Erasmus had been recommended by the 
bishop of Cambray. Though he did not join the com- 
munity of poor students—he was nearly 30 years old— 
he came to know all the privations of the system. They 
embittered the earlier part of his stay at Paris and in- 
stilled in him a deep, permanent aversion to abstinence 
and austerity. Had he come to Paris for this;—to ex- 
perience the dismal and depressing influences of his 
youth anew in a more stringent form? 

The purpose for which Erasmus went to Paris was 
chiefly to obtain the degree of doctor of theology. This 
was not too difficult for him: as a regular he was exempt 
from previous study in the faculty of arts, and his learn- 
ing and astonishing intelligence and energy enabled him 
to prepare in a short time for the examinations and dis- 
putations required. Yet he did not attain this object at 
Paris. His stay, which with interruptions lasted, first till 
1499, to be continued later, became to him a period of 
difficulties and exasperations, of struggle to make his way 
by all the humiliating means which at the time were in- 


THE UNIVERSITY OF PARIS 27 


dispensable to that end; of dawning success, too, which, 
however, failed to gratify him. 

The first cause of his reverses was a physical one; he 
could not endure the hard life in the college of Montaigu. 
The addled eggs and squalid bedrooms stuck in his 
memory all his life; there he thinks he contracted the 
beginnings of his later infirmity. In the Colloquia he has 
commemorated with abhorrence Standonck’s system of 
abstinence, privation and chastisement. For the rest his 
stay there lasted only until the spring of 1496. 

Meanwhile he had begun his theological studies. He 
attended lectures on the Bible and the Book of the Sen- 
tences, the medieval handbook of theology and still the one 
most frequently used. He was even allowed to give some 
lessons in the college on Holy Scripture. He preached 
a few sermons in honour of the Saints, probably in the 
neighbouring abbey of St. Genevieve. But his heart was 
not in all this. The subtleties of the schools could not 
please him. That aversion to all scholasticism, which he 
rejected in one sweeping condemnation, struck root in 
his mind, which, however broad, always judged unjustly 
that for which it had no room. “Those studies can make 
@ man opinionated and contentious; can they make him 
wise? They exhaust the mind by a certain jejune and 
barren subtlety, without fertilizing or inspiring it. By 
their stammering and by the stains of their impure style 
they disfigure theology which had been enriched and 
adorned by the eloquence of the ancients. They involve 
everything whilst trying to resolve everything.” “Scot- 
ist,” with Erasmus, became a handy epithet for all school- 
men, nay, for everything superannuated and antiquated. 
He would rather lose the whole of Scotus than Cicero’s 


A 


is 


28 ; ERASMUS 


or Plutarch’s works. These he feels the better for read- 
ing, whereas he rises from the study of scholasticism frig- 
idly disposed towards true virtue, but irritated into a 
disputatious mood. 

It would, no doubt, have been difficult for Hrasmus to 
find in the arid traditionalism which prevailed in the 
University of Paris, the heyday of scholastic philosophy 
and theology. From the disputations which he heard in 
the Sorbonne he brought back nothing but the habit of 
scofiing at doctors of theology, or as he always ironically 
calls them by their title of honour: Magistri nostri. 
Yawning, he sat among “those holy Scotists” with their 
wrinkled brows, staring eyes, and puzzled faces, and on 
his return home he writes a disrespectful fantasy to his 
young friend Thomas Grey, telling him how he sleeps 
the sleep of Epimenides with the divines of the Sorbonne. 
Epimenides awoke after his forty-seven years of slum- 
ber, but the majority of our present theologians will 
never wake up. What may Epimenides have dreamt? 
What but subtleties of the Scotists: quiddities, formali- 
ties, etc.! Epimenides himself was reborn in Scotus, or 
rather, Epimenides was Scotus’ prototype. For did not 
he, too, write theological books, in which he tied such 
syllogistic knots that he would never have been able to 
loosen them? The Sorbonne preserves Epimenides’ skin 
written over with mysterious letters, as an oracle which 
men may only see after having borne the title of Magister 
noster for fifteen years. 

It is not a far cry from caricatures like these to the 
Sorbonistres and the Barbouillamenta Scoti of Ra- 
belais. “It is said,”’—thus Erasmus concludes his 
boutade,—‘‘that no one can understand the mysteries of 


THE UNIVERSITY OF PARIS 29 


this science who has had the least intercourse with the 
Muses or the Graces. All that you have learned in the 
way of bonae literae has to be unlearned first; if you 
have drunk of Helicon you must first vomit the draught. 
I do my utmost to say nothing according to the Latin 
taste, and nothing graceful or witty; and I am already 
making progress, and there is hope that one day they 
will acknowledge Erasmus.” 

It was not only the dryness of the method and the 
barrenness of the system which revolted Erasmus. It 
was also the qualities of his own mind, which, in spite of 
all its breadth and acuteness, did not tend to penetrate “ 
deeply into philosophical or dogmatic speculations. For 
it was not only scholasticism that repelled him; the 
youthful Platonism and the rejuvenated Aristotelianism 
taught by Lefévre d’Etaples also failed to attract him. 
For the present he remained a humanist of aesthetic 
bias, with the substratum of a biblical and moral dispo- 
sition resting mainly on the study of his favourite 
Jerome. For a long time to come Erasmus considered 
himself, and also introduced himself, as a poet and an 
orator, by which latter term he meant what we call a 
man of letters. 

Immediately on arriving at Paris he must have sought 
contact with the headquarters of literary humanism. The 
obscure Dutch regular introduced himself in a long letter 
(not preserved) full of eulogy, accompanied by a much- 
laboured poem, to the general, not only of the Trinitar- 
ians but, at the same time, of Parisian humanists, Robert 
Gaguin. The great man answered very obligingly: 
“From your lyrical specimen I conclude that you are a 
scholar; my friendship is at your disposal; do not be so 


30 ERASMUS 


profuse in your praise, that looks like flattery.” The 
correspondence had hardly begun when Erasmus found 
a splendid opportunity to render this illustrious person- 
age a service and, at the same time, in the shadow of his 
name, make himself known to the reading public. The 
matter is also of importance because it affords us an op- 
portunity, for the first time, to notice the connection that 
is always found between Erasmus’ career as a man of 
letters and a scholar and the technical conditions of the 
youthful art of printing. 

Gaguin was an all-round man and his Latin textbook 
of the history of France, De origine et gestis Francorum 
Compendium, was just being printed. It was the first 
specimen of humanistic historiography in France. The 
printer had finished his work on the 30th of September, 
1495, but of the 136 leaves two remained blank. This 
was not permissible according to the notions of that time. 
Gaguin was ill and could not help matters. By judicious 
spacing the compositor managed to fill up folio 135 with 
a poem by Gaguin, the colophon and two panegyrics by 
Faustus Andrelinus and another humanist. Even then 
there was need of matter, and Erasmus dashed into the 
breach and furnished a long commendatory letter, com- 
pletely filling the superfluous blank space of folio 136.1 In 
this way his name and style suddenly became known to 
the numerous public which was interested in Gaguin’s 
historical work, and at the same time he acquired another 
title to Gaguin’s protection, on whom the exceptional 
qualities of Erasmus’ diction had evidently not been lost. 





1Allen no. 43, p. 145, where the particulars of the case are expounded 
with peculiar acuteness and conclusions drawn with regard to the 
chronology of Erasmus’ stay at Paris. 


THE UNIVERSITY OF PARIS 31 


That his history would remain known chiefly because 
it had been a stepping stone to Erasmus, Gaguin could 
hardly have anticipated. 

Although Erasmus had now, as a follower of Gaguin, 
been introduced into the world of Parisian humanists, the 
road to fame, which had latterly begun to lead through 
the printing press, was not yet easy for him. He showed 
the Antibarbari to Gaguin, who praised them, but no sug- 
gestion of publication resulted. A slender volume of Latin 
poems by Erasmus was published in Paris in 1496, dedi- 
cated to Hector Boys, a Scotchman, with whom he had 
become acquainted at Montaigu. But the more impor- 
tant writings at which he worked during his stay at Paris 
all appeared in print much later. 

While intercourse with men like Robert Gaguin and 
Faustus Andrelinus might be honourable, it was not di- 
rectly profitable. The support of the bishop of Cambray 
was scantier than he wished. In the spring of 1496 he 
fell ill and left Paris. Going first to Bergen, he had a 
kind welcome from his patron, the bishop; and then, 
having recovered his health, he went on to Holland to 
his friends. It was his intention to stay there, he says. 
The friends themselves, however, urged him to return to 
Paris, which he did in the autumn of 1496. He carried 
poetry by William Hermans and a letter from this poet 
to Gaguin. A printer was found for the poems and 
Erasmus brought his friend and fellow-poet also in con- 
tact with Faustus Andrelinus. 

The position of a man who wished to live by intellec- 4 
tual labor was far from easy at that time and not always 
dignified. He had either to live on church prebends or 
on distinguished patrons or on both. But such a pre- 


39 | ERASMUS 


bend was difficult to get and patrons were uncertain 
and often disappointing. The publishers paid consider- 
able copy-fees only to famous authors. As a rule the 
writer received a number of copies of his work and that 
was all. His chief advantage came from a dedication to 
some distinguished personage, who could compliment him 
for it with a handsome gift. There were authors who 
made it a practice to dedicate the same work repeatedly 
to different persons. Erasmus has afterwards defended 
himself explicitly from that suspicion and carefully noted 
how many of those whom he honored with a dedication 
gave nothing or very little. 

The first need, therefore, to a man in Erasmus’ cir- 
cumstances was to find a Maecenas. Maecenas with the 
humanists was almost synonymous with paymaster. 
Under the Adage “Ne bos quidem pereat” Erasmus has 
given a description of the decent way of obtaining a 
Maecenas. 

Consequently, when his conduct in these years appears 
to us to be actuated, more than once, by an undignified 
pushing spirit, we should not gauge it by our present 
standards. These were his years of weakness. 

On his return to Paris he did not again lodge in 
Montaigu. He tried to make a living by giving lessons 
to young men of fortune. A merchant’s sons of Liibeck, 
Christian and Henry Northoff, who lodged with one Au- 
gustine Vincent, were his pupils. He composed beautiful 
letters for them, witty, fluent and scented a trifle. At 
the same time he taught two young Englishmen, Thomas 
Grey and Robert Fisher, and conceived such a doting 
affection for Grey as to lead to trouble with the youth’s 


THE UNIVERSITY OF PARIS 33 


guardian, a Scotchman, by whom Erasmus was exces- 
sively vexed. 

Paris did not fail to exercise its refining influence on 
Erasmus. It made his style affectedly refined and spar- 
kling ;—he pretends to disdain the rustic products of his 
youth in Holland. In the meantime, the works through 
which afterwards his influence was to spread over the 
whole world began to grow, but only to the benefit of 
a few readers. ‘They remained unprinted as yet. 
For the Northoffs was composed the little compendium 
of polite conversation (in Latin), Familiarium Colloqui- 
orum Formulae, the nucleus of the world-famous Collo- 
quia. For Robert Fisher he wrote the first draft of De 
conscribendis epistolis, the great dissertation on the art of 
letter writing (Latin letters), probably also the Para- 
phrase of Valla’s Elegantiae, a treatise on pure Latin, 
which had been a beacon-light of culture to Erasmus in 
his youth. De copia verborum ac verum was also such 
a help for beginners, to provide them with a vocabulary 
and abundance of turns and expressions; and also the 
germs of a larger work: De ratione studwi, a manual for 
arranging courses of study, lay in the same line. 

It was a life of uncertainty and unrest. The bishop 
gave but little support. Erasmus was not in good health 
and felt continually depressed. He made plans for a 
journey to Italy, but did not see much chance of effecting 
them. In the summer of 1498 he again travelled to Hol- 
land and to the bishop. In Holland his friends were 
little pleased with his studies. It was feared that he was 
contracting debts at Paris. Current reports about him 
were not favourable. He found the bishop, in the com- 
motion of his departure for England, on a mission, irri- 


34 2 ERASMUS 


table and full of complaints. It became more and more 
evident that he would have to look out for another 
patron. Perhaps he might turn to the Lady of Veere, 
Anna of Borselen, with whom his faithful and helpful 
friend Batt had now taken service, as a tutor to her son, 
in the castle of Tournehem, between Calais and Saint 
Omer. 

Upon his return to Paris, Erasmus resumed his old 
life, but it was hateful slavery to him. Batt had an 
invitation for him to come to Tournehem, but he could 
not yet bear to leave Paris. Here he had now as a pupil 
the young Lord Mountjoy, William Blount. That meant 
two strings to his bow. Batt is incited to prepare the 
ground for him with Anna of Veere; William Hermans 
is charged with writing letters to Mountjoy, in which he 
is to praise the latter’s love of literature. “You should 
display an erudite integrity, commend me, and proffer 
your services kindly. Believe me, William, your repu- 
tation, too, will benefit by it. He is a young man of 
great authority with his own folk; you will have some 
one to distribute your writings in England. I pray you 
again and again, if you love me, take this to heart.” 

The visit to Tournehem took place at the beginning of 
1499, followed by another journey to Holland. Hence- 
forward Anna of Veere passed for his patroness. In Hol- 
land he saw his friend William Hermans and told him 
that he thought of leaving for Bologna after Easter. 
The Dutch journey was one of unrest and bustle; he was 
in a hurry to return to Paris, not to miss any opportunity 
which Mountjoy’s affection might offer him. He worked 
hard at the various writings on which he was engaged, 
as hard as his health permitted after the difficult journey 


THE UNIVERSITY OF PARIS 35 


in winter. He was busily occupied in collecting the 
money for travelling to Italy, now postponed until 
August. But evidently Batt could not obtain as much 
for him as he had hoped, and in May, Erasmus suddenly 
gave up the Italian plan, and left for England with 
Mountjoy at the latter’s request. 


IV 
FIRST STAY IN ENGLAND 


FIRST STAY IN ENGLAND: 1499-1500—-OXFORD: JOHN COLET 
—ERASMUS’ ASPIRATIONS DIRECTED TOWARDS DIVINITY 
—HE IS AS YET MAINLY A LITERATE—FISHER AND MORE 
—MISHAP AT DOVER WHEN LEAVING ENGLAND: 1500— 
BACK IN FRANCE HE COMPOSES THE ADAGIA—YEARS OF 
TROUBLE AND PENURY. 

_ Erasmus’ first stay in England, which lasted from the 

“early summer of 1499 till the beginning of 1500, was to 

become for him a period of inward ripening. He came 

there as an erudite poet, the protégé of a nobleman of 
rank, on the road to closer contact with the great world 
which knew how to appreciate and reward literary merit. 

He left the country with the fervent desire in future to 

employ his gifts, in so far as circumstances would permit, 

in more serious tasks. This change was brought about 
by two new friends whom he found in England, whose 
personalities were far above those who had hitherto 
crossed his path: John Colet and Thomas More. 
During all the time of his sojourn in England Erasmus 
is in high spirits, for him. At first it is still the man of 
the world who speaks, the refined man of letters, who 
must needs show his brilliant genius. Aristocratic life, of 
which he evidently had seen but little at the bishop of 

Cambray’s and the Lady of Veere’s at Tournehem, 

pleased him fairly well, it seems. ‘Here in England,” he 

writes in a light vein to Faustus Andrelinus, “we have, 
indeed, progressed somewhat. The Erasmus whom you 

know is almost a good hunter already, not too bad a 


36 


FIRST STAY IN ENGLAND 37 


horseman, a not unpractised courtier. He salutes a little 
more courteously, he smiles more kindly. If you are wise, 
you also will alight here.” And he teases the volatile poet 
by telling him about the charming girls and the laudable 
custom, which he found in England, of accompanying all 
compliments by kisses. 

It even fell to his lot to make the acquaintance of roy- 
alty. From Mountjoy’s estate at. Greenwich, More, in 
the course of a walk, took him to Eltham Palace, where 
the royal children were educated. There he saw, sur- 
rounded by the whole royal household, the youthful 
Henry, who was to be Henry VIII, a boy of nine years 
old, together with two little sisters and a young prince, 
who was still an infant in arms. Erasmus was ashamed 
that he had nothing to offer and, on returning home, he 
composed (not without exertion, for he had not written 
poetry at all for some time) a panegyric on England, 
which he presented to the prince with a graceful dedi- 
cation. 

In October Erasmus was at Oxford which, at first, 
did not please him, but whither Mountjoy was to follow 
him. He had been recommended to John Colet, who de- “ 
clared that he required no recommendations: he already 
knew Erasmus from the letter to Gaguin in the latter’s 
historical work and thought very highly of his learning. 
There followed during the remainder of Erasmus’ stay at 
Oxford a lively intercourse, in conversation and in cor- 
respondence, which definitely decided the bent of Eras- 
mus’ many-sided mind. 





1 Allen no. 103.17. Cf. Chr. Matrim. inst. LB. V. 678 and Cent nou- 
velles nouvelles 2.63, ‘‘ung baiser, dont les dames et demoiselles du dit 
pays d’Angleterre sont assez libérales de l’accorder.’’ 


38 ERASMUS 


John Colet, who did not differ much from Erasmus in 
point of age, had found his intellectual path earlier and 
more easily. Born of well-to-do parents (his father was a 
London magistrate and twice lord mayor), he had been 
able leisurely to prosecute his studies. Not seduced by 
quite such a brilliant genius as Erasmus possessed into 
literary digressions, he had from the beginning fixed his 
attention on theology. He knew Plato and Plotinus, 
though not in Greek, was very well read in the older 
Fathers and also respectively acquainted with scholasti- 
cism, not to mention his knowledge of mathematics, law, 
history and the English poets. In 1496 he had estab- 
lished himself at Oxford. Without possessing a degree 
in divinity, he expounded St. Paul’s epistles. Although, 
owing to his ignorance of Greek, he was restricted to the 
Vulgate, he tried to penetrate to the original meaning 
of the sacred texts, discarding the later commentaries. 

Colet had a deeply serious nature, always warring 
against the tendencies of his vigorous being and he kept 
within restraint his pride and the love of pleasure. He 
had a keen sense of humor, which, without doubt, en- 
deared him to Erasmus. He was an enthusiast. When 
defending a point in theology his ardour changed the 
sound of his voice, the look in his eyes, and a lofty spirit 
permeated his whole person. 

Out of his intercourse with Colet came the first of 
Erasmus’ theological writings. At the end of a discussion 
regarding Christ’s agony in the garden of Gethsemane, 
in which Erasmus had defended the usual view that 
Christ’s fear of suffering proceeded from his human 
nature, Colet had exhorted him to think further about 
the matter. They exchanged letters about it and finally 


FIRST STAY IN ENGLAND 39 


Erasmus committed both their opinions to paper in the 
form of a “Little disputation concerning the anguish, fear 
and sadness of Jesus,” Disputatiuncula de tedio, pavore, 
tristicia Jesu, etc., being an elaboration of these letters. 

While the tone of this pamphlet is earnest and pious, 
it is not truly fervent. The man of letters is not at once 
and completely superseded. ‘See, Colet,’ thus Erasmus 
ends his first letter, referring half ironically to himself, | 
“how I can observe the rules of propriety in concluding 
such a theologic disputation with poetic fables (he had | 
made use of a few mythologic metaphors). But as ° 
Horace says, Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque 
recurret.” 

This ambiguous position which Erasmus still occupied, 
also in things of the mind, appears still more clearly from 
the report which he sent to his new friend, the Frisian 
John Sixtin, a Latin poet, like himself, of another dis- 
putation with Colet, at a repast, probably in the hall of 
Magdalen College, where Wolsey, too, was perhaps 
present. To his fellow-poet, Erasmus writes as a poet, 
loosely and with some affectation. It was a meal such 
as he liked, and afterwards frequently pictured in his 
Colloquies: cultured company, good food, moderate 
drinking, noble conversation. Colet presided. On his 
right hand sat the prior Charnock of St. Mary’s College, 
where Erasmus resided (he had also been present at the 
disputation about Christ’s agony). On his left was a 
divine whose name is not mentioned, an advocate of 
scholasticism; next to him came Erasmus, “that the poet 
should not be wanting at the banquet.” ‘The discussion 
was about Cain’s guilt by which he displeased the Lord. 
Colet defended the opinion that Cain had injured God 


40 , ERASMUS 


by doubting the Creator’s goodness, and, in reliance on 
his own industry, tilling the earth, whereas Abel tended 
the sheep and was content with what grew of itself. The 
divine contended with syllogisms, Erasmus with argu- 
ments of “rhetoric.” But Colet kindled, and got the bet- 
ter of both. After a while, when the dispute had lasted 
long enough and had become more serious than was suit- 
able for table-talk—“then I said, in order to play my 
part, the part of the poet, that is—to abate the conten- 
tion and at the same time cheer the meal with a pleasant 
tale: ‘it is a very old story, it has to be unearthed from 
the very oldest authors. I will tell you what I found 
about it in literature, if you will promise me first that 
you will not look upon it as a fable.’” 

And now he relates a witty story of some very 
ancient codex in which he had read how Cain, who had 
often heard his parents speak of the glorious vegetation 
of Paradise, where the ears of corn were as high as the 
alders with us, had prevailed upon the angel who guarded 
it, to give him some Paradisal grains. God would not 

mind it, if only he left the apples alone. The speech by 
which the angel is incited to disobey the Almighty is a 
masterpiece of Erasmian wit. Do you find it pleasant 
to stand there by the gate with a big sword? We have 
just begun to use dogs for that sort of work. It is not 
so bad on earth and it will be better still; we shall learn, 
no doubt, to cure diseases. What that forbidden knowl- 
edge matters I do not see very clearly. Though, in that 
matter, too, unwearied industry surmounts all obstacles. 
In this way the guardian is seduced. But when God 
beholds the miraculous effect of Cain’s agricultural man- 
agement, punishment does not fail to ensue. 


FIRST STAY IN ENGLAND 41 


A more delicate way of combining Genesis and the 
Prometheus myth no humanist had yet invented. 

But still, though Erasmus went on conducting himself 
as a man of letters among his fellow-poets, his heart was « 
no longer in those literary exercises. It is one of the 
peculiarities of Erasmus’ mental growth that it records 
no violent crises. We never find him engaged in those 
bitter inward struggles which are in the experience of so 
many great minds. His transition from interest in liter- 
ary matters to interest in religious matters is not in the 
nature of a process of conversion. There is no Tarsus in 
Erasmus’ life. The transition takes place gradually and 
is never complete. For many years to come Erasmus 
can, without suspicion of hypocrisy, at pleasure, as his 
interests or his moods require, play the man of letters 
or the theologian. He is a man with whom the deeper 
currents of the soul gradually rise to the surface; who 
raises himself to the height of his ethical consciousness 
under the stress of circumstances, rather than at the 
spur of some irresistible impulse. 

The desire to turn only to matters of faith he shows 
early. “TI have resolved,” he writes in his monastic period 
to Cornelius of Gouda, “to write no more poems in the 
future, except such as savor of praise of the saints, or 
of sanctity itself.’ But that was the youthful pious 
resolve of a moment. During all the years previous to 
the first voyage to England, Erasmus’ writings, and espe- 
cially his letters, betray a worldly disposition. It only 
leaves him in moments of illness and weariness. Then 
the world displeases him and he despises his own ambi- 
tion; he desires to live in holy quiet, musing on Scripture 
and shedding tears over his old errors. But these are 


42 ERASMUS 


utterances inspired by the occasion, which one should not 
take too seriously. 

It was Colet’s word and example which first changed 
Erasmus’ desultory occupation with theological studies 
into a firm and lasting resolve to make their pursuit the 
object of his life. Colet urged him to expound the Penta- 
teuch or the prophet Isaiah at Oxford, just as he himself 
treated of Paul’s epistles. Erasmus declined; he could 
not do it. This bespoke insight and self-knowledge, by 
which he surpassed Colet. The latter’s intuitive Scrip- 
ture interpretation without knowledge of the original 
language failed to satisfy Erasmus. “You are acting 
imprudently, my dear Colet, in trying to obtain water 
from a pumice-stone (in the words of Plautus). How 
shall I be so impudent as to teach that which I have 
not learned myself? How shall I warm others while 
shivering and trembling with cold? ... You complain 
that you find yourself deceived in your expectations re- 
garding me. But I have never promised you such a 
thing; you have deceived yourself by refusing to believe 
me when I was telling you the truth regarding myself. 
Neither did I come here to teach poetics or rhetoric 
(Colet had hinted at that); these have ceased to be sweet 
to me, since they ceased to be necessary to me. I decline 
the one task because it does not come up to my aim in 
life; the other because it is beyond my strength... . 
But when, one day, I shall be conscious that the neces- 
sary power is in me, I, too, shall choose your part and 
devote to the assertion of divinity, if no excellent, yet 
sincere labour.” 

The inference which Erasmus drew first of all was that 


FIRST STAY IN ENGLAND 43 


he should know Greek better than he had thus far 
been able to learn it. 

Meanwhile his stay in England was rapidly drawing to 
a close; he had to return to Paris. Towards the end of 
his sojourn he wrote to his former pupil, Robert Fisher, 
who was in Italy, in a high-pitched tone about the satis- 
faction which he experienced in England. A most pleas- 
ant and wholesome sky (he was most sensitive to it); 
so much humanity and erudition—not of the worn-out 
and trivial sort, but of the recondite, genuine, ancient, 
Latin and Greek stamp—that he need hardly any more 
long to go to Italy. In Colet he thought he heard Plato 
himself. Grocyn, the Grecian scholar; Linacre, the 
learned physician, who would not admire them! And 
whose spirit was ever softer, sweeter or happier than 
that of Thomas More! 

A disagreeable incident occurred as Erasmus was / 
leaving English soil in January, 1500. Unfortunately 
it not only obscured his pleasant memories of the 
happy island, but also placed another obstacle in the 
path of his career, and left a sting in his supersensitive 
soul, which vexed him for years afterwards. 

The livelihood which he had been gaining at Paris of 
late years was precarious. The support from the bishop 
had probably been withdrawn; that of Anna of Veere 
had trickled but languidly; he could not too firmly rely 
on Mountjoy. Under the circumstances a modest fund, 
some provision against a rainy day, was of the highest 
consequence. Such savings he brought from England, 
twenty pounds. An act of Edward III, re-enacted by 
Henry VII not long before, prohibited the exportation of 
gold and silver, but More and Mountjoy had assured 


44 , ERASMUS 


Erasmus that he could safely take his money with him, 
if only it was not in English coin. At Dover he learned 
that the customhouse officers were of a different opinion. 
He might only keep six “angels’;—the rest was left 
behind in the hands of the officials and was evidently 
confiscated. 

The shock which this incident gave him perhaps 
contributed to his fancying himself threatened by robbers 
and murderers on the road from Calais to Paris. The 
loss of his money plunged him afresh into perplexity as 
to his support from day to day. It forced him to resume 
the profession of a bel esprit, which he already began to 
loathe, and to take all the humiliating steps to get what 
was due to it from patrons. And, above all, it affected 
his mental balance and his dignity. Yet this mishap 
had its great advantage for the world, and for Erasmus, 
too, after all. To it the world owes the Adagia; and he 
the fame which began with this work. 

The feelings with which his misfortune at Dover in- 
spired Erasmus were bitter anger, and thirst for revenge. 
A few months later he writes to Batt. “Things with me 
are, as they are wont to be in such cases: the wound 
received in England begins to smart only now that it has 
become inveterate, and that the more, as I cannot have 
my revenge in any way.” And half a year after this, “I 
shall swallow it. An occasion may offer itself, no doubt, 
to be even with them.” Yet meanwhile true insight 
told this man, whose strength did not always attain to 
his ideals, that the English whom he had just seen in 
such a favourable light, let alone his special friends 
among them, were not accessory to the misfertune. He 
never reproached More and Mountjoy whose inaccurate 


FIRST STAY IN ENGLAND 45 


information, he tells us, had done the harm. At the same 
time his interest, which he always saw in the garb of 
virtue, told him that now especially it would be essential 
not to break off his relations with England, and that this 
gave him a splendid chance of strengthening them. 
Afterwards he explained this with a naiveté which often 
causes his writings, especially where he tries to suppress 
or cloak matters, to read like Confessions. 

“Returning to Paris a poor man, I understood that 
many would expect I should take my revenge for this 
mishap with my pen, after the fashion of men of letters, 
by writing something venomous against the king or 
against England. At the same time I was afraid that 
William Mountjoy having indirectly caused my loss of 
money, would be apprehensive of losing my affection. 
In order, therefore, both to put the expectations of those 
people to shame, and to make known that I was not so 
unfair as to blame the country for a private wrong, or so 
inconsiderate as, because of a small loss, to risk mak- 
ing the king displeased with myself or with my friends in 
England, and at the same time to give my friend Mount- 
joy a proof that I was no less kindly disposed towards 
him than before, I resolved to publish something as 
quickly as possible. As I had nothing ready, I hastily 
brought together, by a few days’ reading, a collection of 
Adagia, in the supposition that such a booklet, however 
it might turn out, by its mere usefulness would get into 
the hands of students. In this way I demonstrated that 
my friendship had not cooled off at all. Next in a poem 
I subjoined I protested that I was not angry with the 
king or with the country because of being deprived of my 
money. And my scheme was not ill received. That mod- 


46 ERASMUS 


eration and candour procured me a good many friends in 
England at the time,—erudite, upright and influential 
men.” 

This is a characteristic specimen of semi-ethical con- 
duct. In this way Erasmus succeeded in dealing with 
his indignation, so that later on he could declare, 
when the recollection came up occasionally, “At one blow 
I had lost all my fortune, but I was so unconcerned that 
I returned to my books, all the more cheerfully and ar- 
dently.” But his friends knew how deep the wound had 
been. “Now (on hearing that Henry VIII had ascended 
the throne) surely all bitterness must have suddenly left 
your soul,” Mountjoy writes to him in 1509, possibly 
through the pen of Ammontus. 

The years after his return to France were difficult 
ones. He was in great need of money and was 
forced to do what he could, as a man of letters, with his 
talents and knowledge. He had again to be the homo 
poeticus or rhetoricus. He writes polished letters full of 
mythology and modest mendicity. As a poet he had a 
reputation; as a poet he could expect support. Meanwhile 
the elevating picture of his theological activities remained 
present before his mind’s eye. It nerves him to energy 
and perseverance. “It is incredible,” he writes to Batt, 
“how my soul yearns to finish all my works, at the same 
time becoming somewhat proficient in Greek, and after- 
wards to devote myself entirely to the sacred learning 
after which my soul has been hankering for a long time. — 
I am in fairly good health, so I shall have to strain every 
nerve this year (1501) to get the work we gave the 
printer, published, and by dealing with theological prob- 
lems, to expose our cavillers, who are very numerous, as 


FIRST STAY IN ENGLAND 47 


they deserve. If three more years of life are granted me, 
I shall be beyond the reach of envy.” 

Here we see him in a frame of mind to accomplish great 
things, though not merely under the impulse of true 
devotion. Already he sees the instauration of genuine 
divinity as his task; unfortunately the effusion is con- 
tained in a letter in which he instructs the faithful Batt 
as to how he should handle the Lady of Veere in order 
te wheedle money out of her. 

For years to come the efforts to make a living were to 
cause him almost constant tribulations and petty cares. 
He had had more than enough of France and desired 
nothing better than to leave it. Part of the year 1500 
he spent at Orleans. Adversity made him narrow. There 
is the story of his relations with Augustine Vincent 
Caminade, a humanist of lesser rank (he ended as syndic 
of Middelburg), who took young men as lodgers. It is 
too long to detail here, but remarkable enough as reveal- 
ing Erasmus’ psychology, for it shows how deeply he 
mistrusted his friends. There are also his relations with 
Jacobus Voecht, in whose house he evidently lived gratui- 
tously and for whom he managed to procure a rich lodger 
in the person of an illegitimate brother of the bishop of 
Cambray. At this time, Erasmus asserts, the bishop 
(Antimaecenas he now calls him) set Standonck to dog 
him in Paris. 

Much bitterness there is in the letters of this period. < 
Erasmus is suspicious, irritable, exacting, sometimes rude 
in writing to his friends. He cannot bear William Her- 
mans any longer because of his epicureanism and his lack 
of energy, to which he, Erasmus, certainly was a stranger. 
But what grieves us most is the way he speaks to honest 


48 ERASMUS 


Batt. He is highly praised, certainly. Erasmus promises 
to make him immortal, too. But how offended he is, 
when Batt cannot at once comply with his imperious de- 
mands. How almost shameless are his instructions as to 
what Batt is to tell the Lady of Veere, in order to solicit 
her favor for Erasmus. And how meagre the expres- 
sions of his sorrow, when the faithful Batt is taken from 
him by death in the first half of 1502. 

It is as if Erasmus had revenged himself on Batt for 
having been obliged to reveal himself to his true friend 
in need more completely than he cared to appear to any- 
one; or for having disavowed to Anna of Borselen his 
fundamental convictions, his most refined taste, for the 
sake of a meagre gratuity. He has paid homage to her 
in that ponderous Burgundian style with which dynasties 
in the Netherlands were familiar, and which must have 
been hateful to him. He has flattered her formal piety. 
“TI send you a few prayers, by means of which you could, 
as by incantations, call down, even against her will, from 
Heaven, so to say, not the moon, but her who gave birth 
to the sun of justice.” 

Did you smile your delicate smile, O author of the 
Colloquies, while writing this? So much the worse for 
you. 


Vv 
ERASMUS AS A HUMANIST 


SIGNIFICANCE OF THE ADAGIA AND SIMILAR WORKS OF 
LATER YEARS—ERASMUS AS A DIVULGER OF CLASSICAL 
CULTURE—LATIN—ESTRANGEMENT FROM HOLLAND— 
ERASMUS AS A NETHERLANDER. 

Meanwhile renown came to Erasmus as the fruit of 
those literary studies which, as he said, had ceased to be 
dear to him. In 1500 that work appeared which Eras- 
mus had written after his misfortune at Dover, and 
had dedicated to Mountjoy, the Adagiorum Collectanea. 
It was a collection of about eight hundred proverbial 
sayings drawn from the Latin authors of antiquity and 
elucidated for the use of those who aspired to write 
an elegant Latin style. In the dedication Erasmus 
pointed out the profit an author may derive, both in 
.ornamenting his style and in strengthening his argumen- 
tation, from having at his disposal a good supply of sen- 
tences hallowed by their antiquity. He proposes to offer 
such a help to his readers. What he actually gave was 
much more. He familiarized a much wider circle than 
the earlier humanists had reached with the spirit of an- 
tiquity. 

Until this time the humanists had, to some extent, 
monopolized the treasures of classic culture, in order to 
parade their knowledge of which the multitude remained 
destitute, and so to become strange prodigies of learning 
and elegance. With his irresistible need of teaching and 
his sincere love for humanity and its general culture, 


49 


50 ERASMUS 


Erasmus introduced the classic spirit, in so far as it could 
be reflected in the soul of a 16th century Christian, 
among the people. Not he alone; but none more exten- 
sively and more effectively. Not among all the people, 
it is true, for by writing in Latin he limited his direct 
influence to the educated classes, which in those days 
were the upper classes. 

Erasmus made current the classic spirit. Humanism 
ceased to be the exclusive privilege of a few. According 
to Beatus Rhenanus he had been reproached by some 
humanists, when about to publish the Adagia, for divulg- 
ing the mysteries of their craft. But he desired that the 
book of antiquity should be open to all. 

The literary and educational works of Erasmus, the 
chief of which were begun in his Parisian period, though 
most of them appeared much later, have, in truth, 
brought about a transmutation of the general modes of 
expression and of argumentation. It should be repeated 
over and over again that this was not achieved by him 
single handed; countless others at that time were simi- 
larly engaged. But we have only to cast an eye on the 
broad current of editions of the Adagia, of the Colloquia, 
etc., to realize of how much greater consequence he was 
in this respect than all the others. “Erasmus” is the 
only name in all the host of humanists which has re- 
mained a household word all over the globe. 

Here we will anticipate the course of Erasmus’ life for 
a moment, to enumerate the principal works of this sort. 
Some years later the Adagia increased from hundreds to 
thousands, through which not only Latin, but also Greek, 
wisdom spoke. In 1514 he published in the same manner 
a collection of similitudes, Parabolae. It was a partial 


ERASMUS AS A HUMANIST 52 


realisation of what he had conceived to supplement the 
Adagia—metaphors, saws, allusions, poetical and scrip- 
tural allegories, all to be dealt with in a similar way. 
Towards the end of his life he published a similar the- 
saurus of the witty anecdotes and the striking words or 
deeds of wisdom of antiquity, the Apophthegmata. In 
addition to these collections, we find manuals of a more 
grammatical nature, also piled up treasury-like: on the 
stock of expressions, De copia verborum et rerum, on 
letter writing, not to mention works of less importance. 
By a number of Latin translations of Greek authors 
Erasmus had rendered a point of prospect accessible to 
those who did not wish to climb the whole mountain. 
And, finally, as inimitable models of the manner in which 
to apply all that knowledge, there were the Colloquia and 
that almost countless multitude of letters which have 
flowed from Erasmus’ pen. 

All this collectively made up antiquity (in such quan- 
tity and quality as it was obtainable in the 16th century) 
exhibited in an emporium where it might be had at 
retail. Each student could get what was to his taste; 
everything was to be had there in a great variety of 
designs. “You may read my Adagia in such a manner,” 
says Erasmus (of the later augmented edition), “that as 
soon as you have finished one, you may imagine you have 
finished the whole book.” He himself made indices to 
facilitate its use. 

In the world of scholasticism he alone had up to now 
been considered an authority who had mastered the tech- 
nicalities of its system of thought and its mode of ex- 
pression in all its details and was versed in biblical 
knowledge, logic and philosophy. Between scholastic 


5P4 ERASMUS 


parlance and the spontaneously written popular lan- 
guages, there yawned a wide gulf. Humanism since 
Petrarch had substituted for the rigidly syllogistic struc- 
ture of an argument, the loose style of the antique, free, 
suggestive phrase. In this way the language of the 
learned approached the natural manner of expression of 
daily life and raised the popular languages, even where 
it continued to use Latin, to its own level. 

The wealth of subject matter was found with no one 
in greater abundance than with Erasmus. What knowl- 
edge of life, what ethics, all supported by the indisput- 
able authority of the Ancients, all expressed in that fine, 
airy form for which he was admired. And such knowl- 
edge of antiquities in addition to all this! Illimitable 
was the craving for and illimitable the power to absorb 
what is extraordinary in real life. This was one of the 
principal characteristics of the spirit of the Renaissance. 
These minds never had their desired share of striking 
incidents, curious details, rarities and anomalies. There 
was, as yet, no symptom of that mental dyspepsia of 
later periods, which can no ionger digest reality and 
relishes it no more. Men revelled in plenty. 


And yet, were not Erasmus and his fellow-workers as 
leaders of civilisation on a wrong track? Was it true 
reality they were aiming at? Was their proud Latinity 
not a fatal error? There is one of the crucial points of 
history. 

A present-day reader who should take up the Adagia 
or the Apophthegmata with a view to enrich his own 
life (for they were meant for this purpose and it is what 
gave them value), would soon ask himself: “What mat- 


ERASMUS AS A HUMANIST 53 


ters to us, apart from strictly philological or historical 
considerations, those endless details concerning obscure 
personages of antique society, of Phrygians, of Thessa- 
lians? They are nothing to me.” And—he will continue 
—they really mattered nothing to Erasmus’ contempora- 
ries either. The stupendous history of the 16th century 
was not enacted in classic phrases or turns; it was not 
based on classic interests or views of life. There were no 
Phrygians and Thessalians, no Agesilauses or Diony- 
siuses. The humanists created out of all this a mental 
realm, emancipated from the limitations of time. 

And did their own times pass without being influenced 
by them? That is the question, and we shall not attempt 
to answer it: to what extent did humanism influence the 
course of events? 


In any case Erasmus and his coadjutors greatly .“ 


heightened the international character of civilisation 
which had existed throughout the Middle Ages because 
of Latin and of the Church. If they thought they were 
really making Latin a vehicle for daily international use, 
they overrated their power. It was, no doubt, an amus- 
ing fancy and a witty exercise to plan in such an interna- 
tional milieu as the Parisian student world, such models 
of sports and games in Latin as the Colloquiorum for- 
mulae offered. But can Erasmus have seriously thought 
that the next generation would play at marbles in Latin? 

Still, intellectual intercourse undoubtedly became very 
easy in so wide a circle as had not been within reach in 
Europe since the fall of the Roman Empire. Henceforth 
it was no longer the clergy alone, and an occasional 
literate, but a numerous multitude of sons of burghers 
and nobles, qualifying for some magisterial office, who 


54 ERASMUS 


passed through a grammar-school and found Erasmus 
in their path. 

Erasmus could not have attained to his world-wide 
celebrity if it had not been for Latin. To make his 
native tongue a universal language was beyond him. It 
may well puzzle a fellow-countryman of Erasmus to 
guess what a talent like his, with his power of observa- 
tion, his delicacy of expression, his gusto and wealth, 
might have meant to Dutch literature. Just imagine 
the Colloquia written in the racy Dutch of the 16th cen- 
tury! What could he not have produced if, instead of 
gleaning and commenting upon classic Adagia, he had, 
for his themes, availed himself of the proverbs of the 
vernacular? ‘To us such a proverb is perhaps even more 
sapid than the sometimes slightly finical turns praised by 
Erasmus. 

This, however, is to reason unhistorically; this was not 
what the times required and what Erasmus could give. 
It is quite clear why Erasmus could only write in Latin. 
Moreover, in the vernacular everything would have ap- 
peared too direct, too personal, too real, for his taste. 
He could not do without that thin veil of vagueness, of 
remoteness, in which everything is wrapped when ex- 
pressed in Latin. His fastidious mind would have shrunk 
from the pithy coarseness of a Rabelais, or the rustic 

violence of Luther’s German. 

* Kstrangement from his native tongue had begun for 
Erasmus as early as the days when he learned reading 
and writing. Estrangement from the land of his birth 
set in when he left the monastery of Steyn. It was fur- 
thered not a little by the ease with which he handled 
Latin. Erasmus, who could express himself as well in 


ERASMUS AS A HUMANIST 55 


Latin as in his mother tongue, and even better, conse- 
quently lacked the experience of, after all, feeling thor- 
oughly at home and of being able to express himself fully, 
only among his compatriots. There was, however, an- 
other psychological influence which acted to alienate him 
from Holland. After he had seen at Paris the perspec- 
tives of his own capacities, he became confirmed in the 
conviction that Holland failed to appreciate him, that 
it distrusted and slandered him. Perhaps there was 
indeed some ground for this conviction. But, partly, it 
was also a reaction of injured self-love. In Holland< 
people knew too much about him. They had seen him 
in his smallnesses and feebleness. ‘There he had been 
obliged to obey others—he who, above all things, wanted 
to be free. Distaste of the narrow-mindedness, the 
coarseness and intemperance which he knew to prevail 
there, were summed up, within him, in a general con- 
demnatory judgment of the Dutch character. 
Henceforth he spoke as a rule about Holland with a 
sort of apologetic contempt. “I see that you are con- 
tent with Dutch fame,” he writes to his old friend William 
Hermans, who like Cornelius Aurelius had begun to de- 
vote his best forces to the history of his native country. 
“In Holland the air is good for me,” he writes elsewhere, 
“but the extravagant carousals annoy me; add to this 
the vulgar uncultured character of the people, the violent 
contempt of study, no fruit of learning, the most egre- 
gious envy.” And excusing the imperfection of his juve- 
nalia, he says: “At that time I wrote not for Italians, but 
for Hollanders, that is to say, for the dullest ears.” And, 
in another place, “eloquence is demanded from a Dutch- 
man, that is, from a more hopeless person than a Bceo- 


56 ERASMUS 


tian.” And again, “If the story is not very witty, 
remember it is a Dutch story.” No doubt, false modesty 
had its share in such sayings. 

After 1496 he visited Holland only on hasty journeys. 
There is no evidence that after 1501 he ever set foot on 
Dutch soil. He dissuaded his own compatriots abroad 
from returning to Holland. 

Still, now and again, a cordial feeling of sympathy for 
his native country stirred within him. Just where he 
would have had an opportunity, in explaining Martial’s 
Auris Batava in the Adagia, for venting his spleen, he 
availed himself of the chance of writing an eloquent 
panegyric on what was dearest to him in Holland, “a 
country that I am always bound to honour and revere, 
as that which gave me birth. Would I might be a credit 
to it, just as, on the other hand, I need not be ashamed 
of it.” Their reputed boorishness rather redounds to their 
honour. “If a ‘Batavian ear’ means a horror of Martial’s 
obscene jokes, I could wish that all Christians might have 
Dutch ears. When we consider their morals, no nation 
is more inclined to humanity and benevolence, less savage 
or cruel. Their mind is upright and void of cunning and 
all humbug. If they are somewhat sensual and excessive 
at meals, it results partly from their plentiful supply: 
nowhere is import so easy and fertility so great. What 
an extent of lush meadows, how many navigable rivers! 
Nowhere are so many towns crowded together within so 
small an area; not large towns, indeed, but excellently 
governed. Their cleanliness is praised by everydody. 
Nowhere are such large numbers of moderately learned 
persons found, though extraordinary and exquisite eru- 
dition is rather rare.” 


ERASMUS AS A HUMANIST 57 


They were Erasmus’ own most cherished ideals which 
he here ascribes to his compatriots—gentleness, sincerity, 
simplicity, purity. He sounds that note of love for Hol- 
land on other occasions. When speaking of lazy women, 
he adds: “In France there are large numbers of them, but 
in Holland we find countless wives who by their indus- 
try support their idling and revelling husbands.” And 
in the colloquy entitled The Shipwreck, the people who 
charitably take in the castaways are Hollanders. “There 
is no more humane people than this, though surrounded 
by violent nations.” 

In addressing American readers it is perhaps not super- 
fluous to point out once again that Erasmus when speak- 
ing of Holland, or using the epithet “Batavian,” refers 
to the county of Holland, which at present forms the 
provinces of North and South Holland of the kingdom of 
the Netherlands, and stretches from the Wadden islands 
to the estuaries of the Meuse. Even the nearest neigh- 
bours, such as Zealanders and Frisians, are not included 
in this appellation. 

But it is a different matter when Erasmus speaks of 
“patria,” the fatherland, or of “nostras,” a compatriot. 
In those days a national consciousness was just budding 
all over the Netherlands. A man still felt himself a Hol- 
lander, a Frisian, a Fleming, a Brabantine in the first 
place; but the community of language and customs, and 
still more the strong political influence which for nearly a 
century had been exercised by the Burgundian dynasty, 
which had united most of these low countries under its 
sway, had cemented a feeling of solidarity which did not 
even halt at the linguistic frontier in Belgium. It was 
still rather a strong Burgundian patriotism (even after 


58 ERASMUS 


Hapsburg had de facto occupied the place of Burgundy) 
than a strictly Netherland feeling of nationality” 
People liked, by using a heraldic symbol, to designate 
the Netherlanders as “the Lions.’ Erasmus, too, em- 
ploys the term. In his works we gradually see the nar- 
rower Hollandish patriotism gliding into the Burgundian 
Netherlandish. In the beginning “patria” with him still 
means Holland proper, but soon it meant the Nether- 
lands. It is curious to trace how by degrees his feelings 
regarding Holland, made up of disgust and attachment, 
are transferred to the Low Countries in general. “In my 
youth,” he says in 1535, repeating himself, “I did not 
write for Italians but for Hollanders, the people of Bra- 
bant and Flemings.” So they now all share the reputa- 
tion of bluntness. To Louvain is applied what formerly 
was said of Holland: there are too many compotations; 
nothing can be done without a drinking bout. Nowhere, 
he repeatedly complains, is there so little sense of the 
bonae literae, nowhere is study so despised as in the 
Netherlands, and nowhere are there more cavillers and 
slanderers. But also his affection has expanded. When 
Longolius of Brabant plays the Frenchman, Erasmus is 
vexed: “I devoted nearly three days to Longolius; he 
was uncommonly pleasing, except only that he is too 
French, whereas it is well known that he is one of us.” 
When Charles V has obtained the crown of Spain, Eras- 
mus notes: “a singular stroke of luck, but I pray that 
it may also prove a blessing to the fatherland, and not 
only to the prince.” When his strength was beginning 





1See the author’s study on the origins of Dutch national feeling in 
De Gids, 1912, vol. I. 

2 Allen no. 1026.4, cf. 914, intr. p. 473. Later E. was made to believe 
that L. was a Hollander, cf. LBE. 1507 A. 


ERASMUS AS A HUMANIST 59 


to fail he began to think more and more of returning to 
his native country. ‘King Ferdinand invites me, with 
large promises, to come to Vienna,” he writes from Basle, 
October Ist, 1528, “but nowhere would it please me bet- 
ter to rest than in Brabant.” 


VI 
THEOLOGICAL ASPIRATIONS 


AT TOURNEHEM: 1501I-THE RESTORATION OF THEOLOGY 
NOW THE AIM OF HIS LIFE—HE LEARNS GREEK—JOHN 
VITRIER—ENCHIRIDION MILITIS CHRISTIANI. 

The lean years continued with Erasmus. His liveli- 
hood remained uncertain, and he had no fixed abode. It 
is remarkable that in spite of his precarious means of 
support, his movements were ever guided rather by the 
care for his health than for his sustenance, and his studies 
rather by his burning desire to penetrate to the purest 
sources of knowledge than by his advantage. Repeatedly 
the fear of the plague drives him on: in 1500 from Paris 
to Orleans, where he first lodges with Augustine Cam- 
inade; but when one of the latter’s boarders falls ill, 
Erasmus moves. Perhaps it was the impressions dating 
from his youth at Deventer that made him so exces- 
sively afraid of the plague, which in those days raged 
practically without intermission. Faustus Andrelinus 
sent a servant to upbraid him in his name with his 
cowardice: “That would be an intolerable insult,” Eras- 
mus answers, “if I were a Swiss soldier, but a poet’s soul 
loving peace and shady places is proof against it.” In 
» the spring of 1501 he leaves Paris once more for fear of 
the plague: “the frequent burials frighten me,” he writes 
to Augustine. 

He travelled first to Holland, where, at Steyn, he 
obtained leave to spend another year outside the mon- 
astery, for the sake of study; his friends would be 

60 


THEOLOGICAL ASPIRATIONS . 61 


ashamed, if he returned, after so many years of study, 
without having acquired some authority. At Haarlem 
he visited his friend William Hermans, then turned to 
the south, once again to pay his respects to the bishop 
of Cambray, probably at Brussels. Thence he went to 
Veere, but found no opportunity to talk to his patroness. 
In July, 1501, he subsided into quietness at the castle 
of Tournehem with his faithful friend Batt. 

In all his comings and goings he does not for a moment 
lose sight of his ideals of study. Since his return from / 
England he is mastered by two desires: to edit Jerome, 
the great Father of the Church, and, especially, to learn 
Greek thoroughly. “You understand how much all this 
matters to my fame, nay, to my preservation,” he writes 
(from Orleans towards the end of 1500) to Batt. But, 
indeed, had Erasmus been an ordinary fame and success 
hunter he might have had recourse to plenty of other 
expedients. It was the ardent desire to penetrate to the 
source and to make others understand that impelled him, 
even when he availed himself of these projects of study 
to raise a little money. “Listen,” he writes to Batt, “to 
what more I desire from you. You must wrest a gift from 
the abbot (of Saint Bertin). You know the man’s dispo- 
sition; invent some modest and plausible reason for beg- 
ging. Tell him that I purpose something grand, viz., to 
restore the whole of Jerome, however comprehensive he 
may be, and spoiled, mutilated, entangled by the igno- 
rance of divines; and to re-insert the Greek passages. I 
venture to say, I shall be able to lay open the antiquities 
and the style of Jerome, understood by no one as yet. 
Tell him that I shall want not a few books for the pur- 
pose, and moreover the help of Greeks, and that there- 


62 ERASMUS 


fore I require support. In saying this, Battus, you will 
be telling no lies. For I really mean to do all this.” 

He was, indeed, in a serious mood on this point, as he 
was soon to prove to the world. His conquest of Greek 
was a veritable feat of heroism. He had learned the sim- 
plest rudiments at Deventer, but these evidently amounted 
to very little. In March, 1500, he writes to Batt: 
“Greek is nearly killing me, but I have no time and I 
have no money to buy books or to take a master.” 
When Augustine Caminade wants his Homer back which 
he had lent to him, Erasmus complains: “You deprive 
me of my sole consolation in my tedium. For I so burn 
with love for this author, though I cannot understand 
him, that I feast my eyes and recreate my mind by 
looking at him.” Was Erasmus aware that in saying this 
he almost literally reproduced feelings which Petrarch 
had expressed a century and a half before? But he had 
already begun to study. Whether he had a master is 
not quite clear, but it is probable. He finds the language 
difficult at first. Then gradually he ventures to call 
himself “a candidate in this language,’ and he begins 
with more confidence to scatter Greek quotations through 
his letters. It occupies him night and day and he urges 
all his friends to procure Greek books for him. In the 
>» autumn of 1502 he declares that he can properly write 
all he wants in Greek, and that extempore. He was not 
deceived in his expectation that Greek would open his 
eyes to the right understanding of Holy Scripture. Three 
years of nearly uninterrupted study amply rewarded him 
for his trouble. Hebrew, which he had also taken up, he 
abandoned. At that time (1504) he made translations 
from the Greek, he employed it critically in his theolog- 


THEOLOGICAL ASPIRATIONS 63 


ical studies, he taught it, amongst others, to William Cop, 
the French physician-humanist. A few years later he 
was to find little in Italy to improve his proficiency in 
Greek; he was afterwards inclined to believe that he car- 
ried more of the two ancient languages to that country 
than he brought back. 

Nothing testifies more to the enthusiasm with which 
Erasmus applied himself to Greek than his zeal to make 
his best friends share in its blessings. Batt, he decided, 
should learn Greek. But Batt had no time, and Latin 
appealed more to him. When Erasmus goes to Haarlem 
to visit William Hermans, it is to make him a Greek 
scholar too; he has brought a handbag full of books. 
But he had only his trouble for his pains. William did 
not take at all kindly to this study and Erasmus was so 
disappointed that he not only considered his money and 
trouble thrown away, but also thought he had lost a 
friend. 

Meanwhile he was still undecided where he should go 
in the near future. To England, to Italy, or back to 
Paris? In the end he made a fairly long stay as a 
guest, from the autumn of 1501 till the following sum- 
mer, first at Saint Omer, with the prior of Saint Bertin 
and afterwards at the castle of Courtebourne, not far off. 

At Saint Omer Erasmus became acquainted with a 
man whose image he was afterwards to place beside that 
- of Colet as that of a true divine, and of a good monk at 


the same time: Jean Vitrier, the warden of the Francis- < \ 


can monastery at Saint Omer. Erasmus must have felt 
attracted to him as being burdened with a condemnation 
pronounced by the Sorbonne on account of his too frank 
expressions regarding the abuses of monastic life. Vitrier 


64 ERASMUS 


had not given up the life on that account, but he devoted 
himself to reforming monasteries and convents. Having 
‘ progressed from scholasticism to Saint Paul, he had 
formed a very liberal conception of Christian life, strongly 
opposed to practises and ceremonies. This man, without 
doubt, considerably influenced the origin of one of Eras- 
mus’ most celebrated and influential works, the Hnchi- 
ridion militis christiant. 

Erasmus himself afterwards confessed that the Enchi- 
— ridion was born by chance. He did not reflect that some 
outward circumstance is often made to serve an inward 
impulse. The outward circumstance was that the castle 


of Tournehem was frequented by a soldier, a friend of - 


Batt, a man of very dissolute conduct, who behaved very 
badly towards his pious wife, and who was, moreover, an 
uncultured and violent hater of priests." For the rest 
he was of a kindly disposition and excepted Erasmus from 
his hatred of divines. The wife used her influence with 
Batt to get Erasmus to write something which might 
bring her husband to take an interest in religion. Eras- 
mus complied with the request and Jean Vitrier con- 
curred so cordially with the views expressed in these 
notes that Erasmus afterwards elaborated them at Lou- 
vain; in 1504 they were published at Antwerp by Dirck 
Maertensz. | 
This is the outward genesis of the Enchiridion. But 
the inward cause was that sooner or later Erasmus was 
bound to formulate his attitude towards the religious 
conduct of the life of his day towards ceremonial and 





1That this should have been John of Trazegnies, as Allen thinks 
Possible and Renaudet accepts, is still all too uncertain, A. 164 t. I. p. 
373; Renaudet, Préréforme 428. 


i 
id i ie 


THEOLOGICAL ASPIRATIONS 65 


soulless conceptions of Christian duty, which were an 
eyesore to him. 

In point of form the Enchiridion is a manual for an 
illiterate soldier to attain to an attitude of mind worthy 
of Christ; as with a finger he will point out to him the 
shortest path to Christ. He assumes the friend to be 
weary of life at court—a common theme of contempo- 
rary literature. Only for a few days does Erasmus inter- 
rupt the work of his life, the purification of theology, to 
comply with his friend’s request for instruction. To keep 
up a soldierly style he chooses the title, Enchiridion, the 
Greek word that even in antiquity meant both a poniard 
and a manual’: the poniard of the militant Christian. 
He. reminds him of the duty of watchfulness and enu- 
merates the weapons of Christ’s militia. Self-knowledge . 
is the beginning of wisdom. ‘The general rules of the 
Christian conduct of life are followed by a number of 
remedies for particular sins and faults. 

Such is the outward frame. But within this scope 
Erasmus finds an opportunity, for the first time, to de- 
velop his theological programme. This programme calls 
upon us to return to Scripture. It should be tlie en- 
deavour of every Christian to understand Scripture in 
its purity and original meaning. To that end he should 
prepare himself by the study of the Ancients, orators, 
poets, philosophers; Plato especially. Also the great 
Fathers of the Church, Jerome, Ambrose, Augustine will 





1Tn 1500 (A. 123.21) Erasmus speaks of the Enchiridion of the Father 
Augustine, cf, 135, 188; in 1501, A. 152.33, he calls the Officia of Cicero 
a “‘pugiunculus’’—a dagger. So the appellation had been in his mind 
for some time. 

2? Miles with Erasmus has no longer the meaning of knight which it 
had in medieval Latin. 


66 ERASMUS 


be found useful, but not the large crowd of subsequent 
exegetists. The argument chiefly aims at subverting the 
conception of religion as a continual observance of cere- 
monies. This is Judaic ritualism and of no value. It is 
better to understand a single verse of the psalms well, 
by this means to deepen one’s understanding of God and 
of oneself, and to draw a moral and line of conduct from 
it, rather than to read the whole psalter without atten- 
tion. If the ceremonies do not renew the soul they are 
valueless and hurtful. “Many are used to count how 
many masses they have heard every day, and referring 
to them as to something very important, as though they 
owed Christ nothing else, they return to their former 
habits after leaving church.” “Perhaps you sacrifice 
every day and yet you live for yourself. You worship the 
saints, you like to touch their relics; do you want to earn 
Peter and Paul? Then copy the faith of the one and 
\ the charity of the other and you will have done more 
than if you had walked to Rome ten times.” He does 
not reject formulae and practices; he does not want to 
shake the faith of the humble but he cannot suffer that 
Christ is offered a cult made up of practices only. And 
why is it the monks, above all, who contribute to the 
deterioration of faith? “I am ashamed to tell how super- 
stitiously most of them observe certain petty ceremonies, 
invented by puny human minds (and not even for this 
purpose), how hatefully they want to force others to 
conform to them, how implicitly they trust them, how 
boldly they condemn others.” 

Let Paul teach them true Christianity. “Stand fast 
therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us 
free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bond- 


THEOLOGICAL ASPIRATIONS 67 


age.” This word to the Galatians contains the doctrine 
of Christian liberty, which soon at the Reformation was 
to resound so loudly. Erasmus did not apply it here in 
a sense derogatory to the dogmatics of the Catholic 
Church; but still it is a fact that the Enchindion pre- 
pared many minds to give up much that he still wanted 
to keep. 

The note of the Enchiridion is already what was to 
remain the note of Erasmus’ life-work: how revolting it 
is that in this world the substance and the shadow differ 
so and that the world reverences those whom it should 
not reverence; that a hedge of infatuation, routine and 
thoughtlessness prevents mankind from seeing things in 
their true proportions. He expresses it later in the 
Praise of Folly and in the Colloquies. It is not merely 
religious feeling, it is equally social feeling that inspired 
him. Under the heading: Opinions worthy of a Chris- 
tian, he laments the extremes of pride of class, national 
hostility, professional envy, and rivalry between religious 
orders, which keep men apart. Let everybody sincerely 
concern himself about his brother. “Throwing dice 
cost you a thousand gold pieces in one night, and mean- 
while some wretched girl, compelled by poverty, sold her 
modesty; and a soul is lost for which Christ gave his 
own. You say, what is that to me? I mind my own 
business, according to my lights. And yet you, holding 
such opinions, consider yourself a Christian, who are not 
even a man!” 

In the Enchiridion of the militant Christian, Erasmus 
had for the first time said the things which he had most 
at heart, with fervour and indignation, with sincerity 
and courage. And yet one would hardly say that this 


c— 


68 ERASMUS 


booklet was born of an irresistible impulse of ardent 
piety. Erasmus treats it, as we have seen, as a trifle, 
composed at the request of a friend in a couple of days 
stolen from his studies (though, strictly speaking, this 
only holds good of the first draft, which he elaborated 
afterwards). The chief object of his studies he had 
already conceived to be the restoration of theology. One 
day he will expound Paul, “that the slanderers who con- 
sider it the height of piety to know nothing of bonae 
literae, may understand that we in our youth embraced 
the cultured literature of the Ancients, and that we ac- 
quired a correct knowledge of the two languages, Greek 
and Latin—not without many vigils—not for the pur- 
pose of vainglory or childish satisfaction, but because, 
long before, we premeditated adorning the temple of the 
Lord (which some have too much desecrated by their 
ignorance and barbarism) according to our strength, 
with help from foreign parts, so that also in noble minds 
the love of Holy Scripture may be kindled.” Is it not 
still the Humanist who speaks? 

We hear, moreover, the note of personal justification. 
It is sounded also in a letter to Colet written towards 
the close of 1504, accompanying the edition of the Lucu- 
brationes in which the Enchiridion was first published. 
“T did not write the Enchiridion to parade my invention 
or eloquence, but only that I might correct the error of 
those whose religion is usually composed of more than 
Judaic ceremonies and observances of a material sort, and 
who neglect the things that conduce to piety.” He adds, 
and this is typically humanistic, “I have tried to give 
the reader a sort of art of piety, as others have written 
the theory of certain sciences.” 


THEOLOGICAL ASPIRATIONS 69 


The art of piety! Erasmus might have been surprised 
had he known that another treatise, written more than 
sixty years before, by another canon of the Low Coun- 
tries would continue to appeal much longer and much 
more urgently to the world than his manual: the Imitatio 
Christi by Thomas & Kempis. 

The Enchiridion, collected with some other pieces into 
a volume of Lucubrationes, did not meet with such a 
great and speedy success as had been bestowed upon the 
Adagia. That Erasmus’ speculations on true piety were 
considered too bold was certainly not the cause. They 
contained nothing antagonistic to the teachings of the 
Church, so that even at the time of the Counter Refor- 
mation, when the Church had become highly suspicious 
regarding everything that Erasmus had written, the di- 
vines who drew up the index expurgatorius of his work 
found only a few passages in the Enchiridion to expunge. 
Moreover, Erasmus had inserted in the volume some 
writings of unsuspected Catholic tenor. For a long time 
it was in great repute, especially with theologians and 
monks. A famous preacher at Antwerp used to say that 
a sermon might be found in every page of the Hnchi- 
ridion. But the book only obtained its great influence 
in wide cultured circles, when, upheld by Erasmus’ world- 
wide reputation, it was available in a number of transla- 
tions, English, Czech, German, Dutch, Spanish, and 
French. But then it began to fall under suspicion, for 
that was the time when Luther had unchained the great 
struggle. “Now they have begun to nibble at the Hn- 
chiridion also, that used to be so popular with divines,” 
Erasmus writes in 1526. For the rest it was only two 
passages to which the orthodox critics objected. 


Vil 


YEARS OF TROUBLE—LOUVAIN, PARIS, 
ENGLAND 
DEATH OF BATT: 1502-FIRST STAY AT LOUVAIN: 1502-1504— 

TRANSLATIONS FROM THE GREEK—AT PARIS AGAIN— 

VALLA’S ANNOTATIONES ON THE NEW TESTAMENT— 

SECOND STAY IN ENGLAND: 1505-1506-MORE PATRONS 

AND FRIENDS—DEPARTURE FOR ITALY: 1506-CARMEN 

ALPESTRE. 

Circumstances continued to remain unfavourable for 
Erasmus. “This year fortune has truly been raging vio- 
Jently against me,” he writes in the autumn of 1502. In 
the spring his good friend Batt had died. It is a pity 
that no letters written by Erasmus directly after his 
bereavement have come down to us. We should be glad 
to have for that faithful helper a monument in addition 
to that which Erasmus erected to his memory in the 
Antibarbari. Anna of Veere had remarried and, as a pa- 
troness, might henceforth be left out of account. In 
October, 1502, Henry of Bergen passed away. “I have 
commemorated the bishop of Cambray in three Latin 
epitaphs and a Greek one; they sent me but six guilders, 
that also in death he should remain true to himself.” 
In Francis of Busleiden, archbishop of Besancon, he lost 
at about the same time a prospective new patron. He 
still felt shut out from Paris, Cologne and England by 
the danger of the plague. 

, In the late summer of 1502 he went to Louvain, “flung 
thither by the plague,” he says. The university of Lou- 


79 


YEARS OF TROUBLE 71 


vain, established ‘in 1425 to wean the Netherlands in 
spiritual matters from Paris, was, at the beginning of the 
16th century, one of the strongholds of theological tradi- 
tion, which, however, did not prevent the progress of 
classical studies. How else should Adrian of Utrecht, 
later pope, but at that time dean of Saint Peter’s and 
professor of theology, have forthwith undertaken to get 
him a professorship? Erasmus declined the offer, how- 
ever, “for certain reasons,” he says. Considering his great 
distress, the reasons must have been cogent indeed. One 
of them which he mentioned is not very clear to us: 
“T am here so near to Dutch tongues which know how 
to hurt much, it is true, but have not learned to profit 
any one.” His spirit of liberty and his ardent love of 
the studies to which he wanted to devote himself en- 
tirely, were, no doubt, his chief reasons for declining. 
But he had to make a living. Life at Louvain was 
expensive and he had no regular earnings. He wrote 
some prefaces and dedicated to the bishop of Arras, 
chancellor of the University, the first translation from the 
Greek: some Declamationes by Libanius. When in the 
autumn of 1503 Philip le Beau was expected back in the 
Netherlands from his journey to Spain, Erasmus wrote, 
with sighs of distaste, a panegyric to celebrate the 
safe return of the prince. It cost him much trouble. 
“Tt occupies me day and night,” says the man who com- 
posed with such incredible facility, when his heart was in 
the work. “What is harder than to write with aversion; 
what is more useless than to write something by which 
we unlearn good writing?” It must be acknowledged 
that he really flattered as sparingly as possible; the 
practice was so repulsive to him that in his preface he 


72 ERASMUS 


roundly owned that, to tell the truth, this whole class 
of composition was not to his taste. 

At the end of 1504 Erasmus was back at Paris, at last. 
Probably he had always meant to return and looked 
upon his stay at Louvain as a temporary exile. The 
circumstances under which he left Louvain are unknown 
to us, because of the almost total lack of letters of the 
year 1504. In any case, he hoped that at Paris he would 
sooner be able to attain his great end of devoting himself 
entirely to the study of theology. “I cannot tell you, 
dear Colet,” he writes towards the end of 1504, “how I 
hurry on, with all sails set, to holy literature; how I 
dislike everything that keeps me back, or retards me. 
But the disfavour of Fortune, who always looks at me 
with the same face, has been the reason why I have 
not been able to get clear of those vexations. So I 
returned to France with the purpose, if I cannot solve 
them, at any rate to rid myself of them in one way or 
another. After that I shall devote myself, with all my 
heart, to the divinae literae, to give up the remainder 
of my life to them.” If only he can find the means 
to work for some months entirely for himself and disen- 
tangle himself from profane literature. Can Colet not 
find out for him how matters stand with regard to the 
proceeds of the hundred copies of the Adagia which, at 
one time, he sent to England at his own expense? The 
liberty of a few months may be bought for little money. 

There is something heroic in Erasmus scorning to make 
~ money out of his facile talents and enviable knowledge of 
the humanities, daring indigence to be able to realize 
his shining ideal of restoring theology. 

It is remarkable that the same Italian humanist who in 


YEARS OF TROUBLE 73 


his youth had been his guide and example on the road to 
pure Latiny and classic antiquity, Lorenzo Valla, by 
chance became his leader and an outpost in the field of 
critical theology. In the summer of 1504, hunting in the 
old library of the Premonstratensian monastery of Pare, 
near Louvain (“in no preserves is hunting a greater de- 
light”), he found a manuscript of Valla’s Annotationes on 
the New Testament. It was a collection of critical notes 
on the text of the Gospels, the Epistles and Revelation. 
That the text of the Vulgate was not stainless had been 
acknowledged by Rome itself as early as the 13th cen- 
tury. Monastic orders and individual divines had set 
themselves to correct it, but that purification had not 
amounted to much, in spite of Nicholas of Lyra’s work 
in the 14th century. 

It was probably the falling in with Valla’s Annotationes / 
which led Erasmus, who was formerly more inspired with 
the resolution to edit Jerome and to comment upon Paul 
(he was to do both at a later date), to turn to the task 
of taking up the New Testament as a whole, in order 
to restore it in its purity. In March, 1505, already Josse 
Badius at Paris printed Valla’s Annotationes for Erasmus, 
as a sort of advertisement of what he himself one day 
hoped to achieve. It was a feat of courage. Erasmus 
did not conceal from himself that Valla, the humanist, 
had an ill name with divines, and that there would be 
an outcry about “the intolerable temerity of the homo 
grammaticus, who after having harassed all the disci- 
plinae, did not scruple to assail holy literature with his 
petulant pen.” It was another program much more 
explicit and defiant than the Enchiridion had been. 

Once more it is not clear why and how Erasmus 


\es 


74 ERASMUS 


left Paris again for England in the autumn of 1505. He 
speaks of serious reasons and the advice of sensible peo- 
ple. He mentions one reason: lack of money. The re- 
print of the Adagia, published by John Philippi at Paris 
in 1505, had probably helped him through, for the time 
being; the edition cannot have been to his taste, for he 
had been dissatisfied with his work and wanted to extend 
it, by weaving his new Greek knowledge into it. From 
Holland a warning voice had sounded, the voice of his 
superior and friend Servatius, demanding an account of 
his departure from Paris. Evidently his Dutch friends 
had still no confidence in Erasmus, his work and his 
future. 

In many respects that future appeared more favorable 
to him in England than it had seemed anywhere, thus 
far. There he found the old friends, men of consideration 
and importance: Mountjoy, with whom, on his arrival, 
he stayed some months, Colet, and More. There he 
found some excellent Greek scholars, whose conversation 
promised to be profitable and amusing; not Colet, who 
knew little Greek, but More, Linacre, Grocyn, Latimer, 
and Tunstall. He soon came in contact with some high 
ecclesiastics who were to be his friends and patrons: 
Richard Foxe, Bishop of Winchester, John Fisher, Bishop 
of Rochester and William Warham, Archbishop of Can- 
terbury. Soon he would also find a friend whose con- 
genial spirit and interests, to some extent, made up for 
the loss of Batt: the Italian Andrew Ammonius, of Lucea. 
And lastly, the king promised him an ecclesiastical bene- 
fice. It was not long before Erasmus was armed with 
a dispensation of Pope Julius II, dated January 4th, 


YEARS OF TROUBLE . 75 


1506, cancelling the obstacles in the way of accepting 
an English benefice. 

Translations from Greek into Latin were for him an 
easy and speedy means to obtain favour and support: 
a dialogue by Lucian, followed by others, for Foxe; the 
Hecuba and the Iphigenia of Euripides for Warham. 
He now also thought of publishing his letters. 

Clearly his relations with Holland were not yet satis- 
factory. Servatius did not reply to his letters. Erasmus 
ever felt hanging over him a menace to his career and 
his liberty embodied in the figure of that friend, to whom 
he was linked by so many silken ties, yonder in the 
monastery of Steyn, where his return was looked forward 
to, sooner or later, as a beacon-light of Christendom. 
Did the prior know of the papal dispensation exempting 
Erasmus from the “statutes and customs of the mon- 
astery of Steyn in Holland, of the order of Saint Au- 
gustine?” Probably he did. On the Ist of April, 1506, 
Erasmus writes to him: “Here in London I am, as it 
seems, greatly esteemed by the most eminent and eru- 
dite men of all England. The king has promised me a 
curacy: the visit of the prince necessitated a postpone- 
ment of this business.’’ 

He immediately adds: “I am deliberating again, how 
best to devote the remainder of my life (how much that 
will be, I do not know) entirely to piety, to Christ. I 
see life, even when it is long, as evanescent and dwin- 
dling; I know that I am of a delicate constitution and 
that my strength has been encroached upon, not a little, 
by study and also, somewhat, by misfortune. I see that 





1A. 189, Philip le Beau, who had unexpectedly come to England 
because of a storm, which obliged Mountjoy to do court-service. 


76 ERASMUS 


no deliverance can be hoped from study, and that it 
seems as if we had to begin over again, day after day. 
‘Therefore I have resolved, content with my mediocrity 
(especially now that I, have learned as much Greek as 
suffices me), to apply myself to meditation about death 
and the training of my soul. I should have done so 
before and have husbanded the precious years when they 
were at their best. But though it is a tardy husbandry 
that people practise when only little remains at the 
bottom, we should be the more economical accordingly 
as the quantity and quality of what is left diminishes.” 
Was it a fit of melancholy which made Erasmus write 
those words of repentance and renunciation? Was he 
surprised in the middle of the pursuit of his life’s aim by 
the consciousness of the vanity of his endeavours, the 
consciousness, too, of a great fatigue? Is this the deepest 
foundation of Erasmus’ being, which he reveals for a 
moment to his old and intimate friend? It may be 
doubted. The passage tallies very ill with the first sen- 
tences of the letter, which are altogether concerned with 
success and prospects. In a letter he wrote the next 
day, also to Gouda and to a trusted friend, there is no 
trace of the mood: he is again thinking of his future. 
We do not notice that the tremendous zeal with which 
he continues his studies is relaxed for a moment. And 
there are other indications that towards Servatius who 
knew him better than he could wish, and who, moreover, 
as prior of Steyn, had a threatening power over him, he 
purposely demeaned himself as though he despised the 
world. 
_ Meanwhile nothing came of the English prebend. But 
suddenly the occasion offered to which Erasmus had so 


YEARS OF ‘TROUBLE 77 


often looked forward: the journey to Italy. The court- 
physician of Henry VII, Giovanni Battista Boerio, of 
Genoa, was looking for a master to accompany his sons 
in their journey to the universities of Italy. Erasmus 
accepted the post, which charged him neither with the 
duties of tuition nor with attending to the young fellows, 
but only with supervising and guiding their studies. In - 
the beginning of June, 1506, he found himself on French 
soil once more. For two summer months the party of 
travellers stayed at Paris and Erasmus availed himself 
of the opportunity to have several of his works, which 
he had brought from England, printed at Paris. He was 
by now a well-known and a favourite author, gladly wel- 
comed by the old friends (he had been reputed dead) 
and made much of. Josse Badius printed all Erasmus 
offered him: the translations of Euripides and Lucian, a 
collection of Epigrammata, a new but still unaltered 
edition of the Adagia. 

In August the journey was continued. As he rode on 
horseback along the Alpine roads the most important 
poem Erasmus has written, the echo of an abandoned 
pursuit, originated. He had been vexed about his travel- 
ling company, had abstained from conversing with them, 
and sought consolation in composing poetry. The result 
was the ode which he called Carmen equestre vel potius 
alpestre, about the inconveniences of old age, dedicated 
to his friend William Cop. 

Erasmus was one of those who early feel old. He was < 
not forty and yet fancied himself across the threshold 
of old age. How quickly it had come! He looks back 
on the course of his life: he sees himself playing with 
nuts as a child, as a boy eager for study, as a youth 


78 ERASMUS 


engrossed in poetry and scholasticism, also in painting. 
He surveys his enormous erudition, his study of Greek, 
his aspiration to scholarly fame. In the midst of all this 
old age has suddenly come. What remains to him? And 
again we hear the note of renunciation of the world and 
of devotion to Christ. Farewell jests and trifles, farewell 
philosophy and poetry, a pure heart full of Christ is all 
he desires henceforward. 

Here, in the stillness of the Alpine landscape, there 
arose something more of Erasmus’ deepest aspira- 
tions than in the lament to Servatius. But in this case, 
too, it is a stray element of his soul, not the strong 
impulse that gave direction and fullness to his life and 
with irresistible pressure urged him on to ever new 
studies. 


Vill 
IN ITALY 


ERASMUS IN ITALY: 1506-15099—-HE TAKES HIS DEGREE AT 
TURIN—BOLOGNA AND POPE JULIUS II—-ERASMUS IN 
VENICE WITH ALDUS: 1507-1508-THE ART OF PRINTING— 
ALEXANDER STEWART—TO ROME: 1509-NEWS OF HENRY 
VIII’S ACCESSION—ERASMUS LEAVES ITALY. 

At Turin Erasmus received, directly upon his arrival, 
on September 4th, 1506, the degree of doctor of theology. 
That he did not attach much value to the degree is easy 
to understand. He regarded it, however, as an official 
warrant of his competence as a writer on theological 
subjects, which would strengthen his position when 
assailed by the suspicion of his critics. He writes dis- 
dainfully about the title, even to his Dutch friends who 
in former days had helped him on in his studies for the 
express purpose of obtaining the doctor’s degree. As 
early as 1501, to Anna of Borselen he writes, “Go to 
Italy and obtain the doctor’s degree? Foolish projects, 
both of them. But one should conform to the customs 
of the times.”’ Again to Servatius and Johannes Obrecht, 
half apologetically, he says: “I have obtained the doc- 
tor’s degree in theology, and that quite contrary to my 
intention, only because I was overcome by the prayers 
of friends.” 

Bologna was now the destination of his journey. But * 
when Erasmus arrived there, a war was in progress 
_ which forced him to retire to Florence for a time. Pope 
Julius II, allied with the French, at the head of an army, 


79 


80 ERASMUS 


marched on Bologna to conquer it from the Bentivogli. 
This purpose was soon attained, and Bologna was a safe 
place to return to. On the 11th of November, 1506, 
Erasmus witnessed the triumphal entry of the martial 
pope. 

Of these days nothing but short, hasty letters of his 
have come down to us. They speak of unrest and 
rumours of war. There is nothing to show that he was 
impressed by the beauty of the Italy of the Renaissance. 
The scanty correspondence dating from his stay in Italy 
mentions neither architecture, nor sculpture, nor pictures. 
When much later he happened to remember his visit to 
the Chartreuse of Pavia, it is only to give an instance 
of useless waste and magnificence. Books alone seemed 
to occupy and attract Erasmus in Italy. 

At Bologna, Erasmus served as a mentor to the young 
Boerios to the end of the year for which he had bound 
himself. It seemed a very long time to him. He could 
not stand any encroachment upon his liberty. He felt 
caught in the contract as in a net. The boys, it seems, 
were intelligent enough, if not so brilliant as Erasmus 
had seen them in his first joy; but with their private 
tutor Clyfton, whom he at first extolled to the sky, he 
was soon at loggerheads. At Bologna he experienced 
many vexations for which his new relations with Paul 
Bombasius could only in part indemnify him. He worked 
there at an enlarged edition of his Adagia which now, by 
the addition of the Greek ones, increased from eight 
hundred to some thousands of items. 

From Bologna, in October, 1507, Erasmus addressed 
a letter to the famous Venetian printer, Aldus Manu- 
tius, in which he requested him to publish, anew, the 


IN ITALY 8t 


two translated dramas of Euripides, as the edition of 
Badius was out of print and too defective for his taste. 
What made Aldus attractive in his eyes was, no doubt, 
besides the fame of the business, though it was languish-. 
ing at the time, the printer’s beautiful type—“those most 
magnificent letters, especially those very small ones.” 
Erasmus was one of those true booklovers who pledge 
their heart to a type or a size or a book, not because of 
any artistic preference, but because of readableness and 
handiness, which to them are of the very greatest impor- 
tance. What he asked of Aldus was a small book at alow 
price. Towards the end of the year their relations had 
gone so far that Erasmus gave up his projected journey 
to Rome, for the time, to remove to Venice, there per-- 
sonally to superintend the publication of his works.. 
Now there was no longer merely the question of a little 
book of translations, but Aldus had declared himself 
willing to print the enormously increased collection of 
the Adagia. 

Beatus Rhenanus tells a story, which, no doubt, he had 
heard from Erasmus himself: how Erasmus on his arrival 
at Venice had gone straight to the printing office and 
was kept waiting there for a long time. Aldus was cor- 
recting proofs and thought his visitor was one of those 
inquisitive people by whom he used to be pestered. 
When he turned out to be Erasmus, he welcomed him 
cordially and procured him board and lodging in the 
house of his father-in-law, Andrea Asolani. Fully eight 
months did Erasmus live there, in the environment which,« 
in future, was to be his true element: the printing office. 
He was in a fever of hurried work, about which he would 
often sigh, but which, after all, was congenial to him. 


82 ERASMUS 


The augmented collection of the Adagia had not yet been 
made ready for the press at Bologna. “With great 
temerity on my part,” Erasmus himself testifies, “we 
began to work at the same time, I to write, Aldus to 
print.” Meanwhile the literary friends of the New Acad- 
emy whom he got to know at Venice, Johannes Lascaris, 
Baptista Egnatius, Marcus Musurus and the young Je- 
rome Aleander, with whom, at Asolani’s, he shared room 
and bed, brought him new Greek authors, unprinted as 
yet, furnishing fresh material for augmenting the Adagra. 
These were no inconsiderable additions: Plato in the 
original, Plutarch’s Lives and Moralia, Pindar, Pausanias, 
and others. Even people whom he did not know and who 
took an interest in his work, brought new material to 
him. Amid the noise of the pressroom, Erasmus, to the 
surprise of his publisher, sat and wrote, usually from 
memory, so busily occupied that, as he picturesquely 
expressed it, he had no time to scratch his ears. He 
was lord and master of the printing office. A special 
corrector had been assigned to him; he made his textual 
changes in the last impression. Aldus also read the 
proofs. “Why?” asked Erasmus. “Because I am study- 
ing at the same time,” was the reply. Meanwhile Erasmus 
suffered from the first attack of his tormenting nephro- 
lithic malady; he ascribed it to the food he got at Aso- 
lani’s and later took revenge by painting that boarding- 
house and its landlord in very spiteful colours in the 
Colloquies. 

When in September, 1508, the edition of the Adagia 
was ready, Aldus wanted Erasmus to remain in order 
to write more for him. Till December he continued to 
work at Venice on editions of Plautus, Terence, and 


IN ITALY 83 


Seneca’s tragedies. Visions of joint labour to publish all 
that classic antiquity still held in the way of hidden treas- 
ures, together with Hebrew and Chaldean stores, floated 
before his mind. 

Erasmus belonged to the generation which had grown 
up together with the youthful art of printing. To the 
world of those days it was still like a newly acquired 
organ; people felt rich, powerful, happy in the possession 


of this “almost divine implement.” ‘The figure of Eras- « 


mus and his oeuvre were only rendered possible by the 
art of printing. He was its glorious triumph and, equally, 
in a sense, its victim. What would Erasmus have been 
without the printing press? To broadcast the ancient 
documents, to purify and restore them was his life’s pas- 
sion. The certainty that the printed book places exactly 
the same text in the hands of thousands of readers, was 
to him a consolation that former generations had lacked. 

Erasmus is one of the first who, after his name as an 
author was established, worked directly and continually - 
for the press. It was his strength, but also his weakness. 
It enabled him to exercise an immediate influence on the 
reading public of Europe such as had emanated from 
none before him; to become a focus of culture in the full 
sense of the word, an intellectual central station, a touch- 
stone of the spirit of the time. Imagine for a moment 
what it would have meant if a still greater mind than his, 
say Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa, that universal spirit who 
had helped in nursing the art of printing in its earliest 
infancy, could have availed himself of the art, as it was 
placed at the disposal of Erasmus! 

The dangerous aspect of this situation was that print- 
ing enabled Erasmus, having once become a centre and 


84 ERASMUS 


an authority, to address the world at large immediately 
about all that occurred to him. Much of his later mental 
labour is, after all, really but repetition, ruminating, di- 
gression, unnecessary vindication from assaults to which 
his greatness alone would have been a sufficient answer, 
futilities which he might have better left alone. Much 
of this work written directly for the press is journalism 
at bottom, and we do Erasmus an injustice by applying 
to it the tests of lasting excellence. The consciousness 
that we can reach the whole world at once with our 
writings is a stimulant which unwittingly influences our 
mode of expression, a luxury that only the highest spirits 
can bear with impunity. 

The link between Erasmus and book-printing was Latin. 
Without his incomparable Latinity his position as an 
author would have been impossible. The art of printing 
undoubtedly furthered the use of Latin. It was the 
Latin publications which in those days promised success 
and a large sale for a publisher, and established his reputa- 
tion, for they were broadcast all over the world. The 
leading publishers were themselves scholars filled with 
enthusiasm for humanism. Cultured and well-to-do peo- 
ple acted as proof-readers to printers; such as Peter 
Gilles, the friend of Erasmus and More, the town-clerk 
of Antwerp, who corrected proof-sheets for Dirck Maer- 
tensz. The great printing offices were, in a local sense, 
too, the foci of intellectual intercourse. The fact that 
England had lagged behind, thus far, in the evolution of 
the art of printing, contributed not a little, no doubt, 
to prevent Erasmus from settling there, where so many 
ties held and so many advantages allured him. 

To find a permanent place of residence was, indeed, 


IN ITALY 85 


and apart from this fact, very hard for him. Towards 
the end of 1508 he accepted the post of tutor of rhetorics 
to the young Alexander Stewart, a natural son of James 
IV of Scotland, and already, in spite of his youth, arch- 
bishop of Saint Andrews, now a student at Padua. The 
danger of war soon drove them from upper Italy to 


Siena. Here Erasmus obtained leave to visit Rome. < 


He arrived there early in 1509, no longer an unknown 
canon from the northern regions but a celebrated and 
honoured author. All the charms of the Eternal City 
lay open to him and he must have felt keenly gratified 
by the consideration and courtesy with which cardinals 
and prelates, such as John of Medici, afterwards 
Leo X, Domenico Grimani, Riario and others, treated 
him. It seems that he was even offered some post in the 
curia. But he had to return to his youthful archbishop 
with whom he thereupon visited Rome again, incognito, 
and afterwards travelled in the neighbourhood of Naples. 
He inspected the cave of the Sibylla of Cumae, but what 
it meant to him we do not know. This entire period 
following his departure from Padua and all that follows 
till the spring of 1511—in certain respects the most im- 
portant part of his life—remains unrecorded in a single 
letter that has come down to us. Here and there he has 
occasionally, and at a much later date, touched upon 
some impressions of Rome,’ but the whole remains vague 
and dim. It is the incubation period of the Praise of 
Folly that is thus obscured from view. 

On the 21st of April, 1509, King Henry VII of Eng- 
land died. His successor was the young prince whom 
Erasmus had saluted at Eltham in 1499, to whom he had 





1LBE. no. 1175 c. 1375, visit to Grimani. 


86 ERASMUS 


dedicated his poem in praise of Great Britain, and who, 
during his stay at Bologna, had distinguished him by a 
Latin letter as creditable to Erasmus as to the 15-year- 
old royal latinist If ever the chance of obtaining a 
patron seemed favourable, it was now, when this prom- 
ising lover of letters ascended the throne as Henry VIIt. 
Lord Mountjoy, Erasmus’ most faithful Maecenas, 
thought so, too, and pointed out the fact to him in a 
letter of May 27th, 1509. It was a pleasure to see, he 
wrote, how vigorous, how upright and just, how zealous 
in the cause of literature and men of letters was the con- 
duct of the youthful prince. Mountjoy,—or Ammonius, 
who probably drew up the flowery document for him, 
—was exultant. A laughing sky and tears of joy are 
the themes of the letter. Evidently, however, Eras- 
mus himself had, on his side, already sounded Mountjoy 
as to his chances, as soon as the tidings of Henry VII's 
death became known at Rome; not without lamentations 
about cares and weakened health. “The archbishop of 
Canterbury,” Mountjoy was able to apprise Erasmus, “is 
not only continually engrossed in your Adagia and praises 
you to the skies, but he also promises you a benefice on 
your return and sends you five pounds for travelling 
expenses,’ which sum was doubled by Mountjoy. 

We do not know whether Erasmus really hesitated 
before he reached his decision. Cardinal Grimani, he 


_ | asserts, tried to hold him back, but in vain, for in July, 


_ 1509, he left Rome and Italy, never to return. 
As he crossed the Alps for the second time, not on the 
French side now, but across the Spliigen, through Switzer- 





2A, 206, where from Allen’s introduction one can form an opinion 
about the prince’s share in the composition. 


IN ITALY 87 


land, his Genius touched him again, as had happened in 
those high regions three years before on the road to 
Italy. But this time it was not in the guise of the Latin 
Muse, who then drew from him such artful and pathetic 
poetical meditations about his past life and pious vows 
for the future;—it was something much more subtle and 
grand: the Praise of Folly. 


THE PRAISE OF FOLLY 


MORIAE ENCOMIUM, THE PRAISE OF FOLLY: 1509, AS A 
WORK OF ART—FOLLY, THE MOTOR OF ALL LIFE: INDIS- 
PENSABLE, SALUTARY, CAUSE AND SUPPORT OF STATES 
AND OF HEROISM—FOLLY KEEPS THE WORLD GOING— 
VITAL ENERGY INCORPORATED WITH FOLLY—LACK OF 
FOLLY MAKES UNFIT FOR LIFE—NEED OF SELF-COM- 
PLACENCY—HUMBUG BEATS TRUTH—KNOWLEDGE A 
PLAGUE—SATIRE OF ALL SECULAR AND ECCLESIASTICAL 
VOCATIONS—TWO THEMES THROUGHOUT THE WORK— 
THE HIGHEST FOLLY: ECSTASY—THE MORIA TO BE 
TAKEN AS A GAY JEST—CONFUSION OF FOOLS AND 
LUNATICS—ERASMUS TREATS HIS MORIA SLIGHTINGLY 
—ITS VALUE. 


While he rode over the mountain passes,” Erasmus’ 
restless spirit, now unfettered for some days by set tasks, ' 
occupied itself with everything he had studied and read 
in the last few years, and with everything he had seen. 
What ambition, what self-deception, what pride and con- 
ceit filled the world! He thought of Thomas More, 
whom he was now to see again ——that most witty and 
wise of all his friends, with that curious name Moros, 
the Greek word for a fool, which so ill became his per- 
sonality. Anticipating the gay jests which More’s con- 
versation promised, there grew in his mind that 
masterpiece of humour and wise irony, Moriae En- 
comium, the Praise of Folly. The world as the scene of 
universal folly; folly as the indispensable element making 


1 That he conceived the work in the Alps follows from the fact that 
he tells us explicitly that it happened while riding, whereas, after 
passing through Switzerland, he travelled by boat. A. 1, IV 216.62. 


88 


THE PRAISE OF FOLLY 89 


life and society possible and all this put into the mouth 
of Stultitia Folly itself (true antitype of Minerva), who 
in a panegyric on her own power and usefulness, praises 
herself. As to form it is a Declamatio, as he had trans- 
lated them from the Greek of Libanius. As to the spirit, 
a revival of Lucian, whose Gallus, translated by him 
three years before, may have suggested the theme. It 
must have been in the incomparably lucid moments of 
that brilliant intellect. All the particulars of classic 
reading which the year before he worked up in the new 
edition of the Adagia were still at his immediate disposal 
in that retentive and capacious memory. Reflecting at 
his ease on all that wisdom of the ancients, he secreted 
the juices required for his expostulation. 

He arrived in London, took up his abode in More’s 
house in Bucklersbury, and there, tortured by nephritic 
pains, he wrote down in a few days, without having his 
books with him, the perfect work of art that must have 
been ready in his mind. Stultitia was truly born in the 
manner of her serious sister Pallas. 

As to form and imagery the Moria is faultless, the 
product of the inspired moments of creative impulse. 
The figure of an orator confronting her public is sus- 
tained to the last in a masterly way. We see the faces 
of the auditors light up with glee when Folly appears in 
the pulpit; we hear the applause interrupting her words. 
There is a wealth of fancy, coupled with so much sober- 
ness of line and-colour, such reserve, that the whole 
presents a perfect instance of that harmony which is the 
essence of Renaissance expression. There is no exuber- 
ance, in spite of the multiplicity of matter and thought, 
but a temperateness, a smoothness, an airiness and clear- 


_ 


90 ERASMUS 


ness which are as gladdening as they are relaxing. In 
order perfectly to realize the artistic perfection of Eras- 
mus’ book we should compare it with Rabelais. 

“Without me,” says Folly, “the world cannot exist for 
a moment. For is not all that is done at all among 
mortals, full of folly; is it not performed by fools and 
for fools?” “No society, no cohabitation can be pleasant 
or lasting without folly; so much so, that a people could 
not stand its prince, nor the master his man, nor the 
maid her mistress, nor the tutor his pupil, nor the friend 
his friend, nor the wife her husband for a moment longer, 
if they did not now and then err together, now flatter 
each other; now sensibly conniving at things, now 
smearing themselves with some honey of folly.” In that 
sentence the summary of the Laus is contained. Folly 
here is worldly wisdom, resignation and lenient judgment. 

He who pulls off the masks in the comedy of life is 
ejected. What is the whole life of mortals but a sort of 
play in which each actor appears on the boards in his 
specific mask and acts his part till the stage-manager 
calls him off? He acts wrongly who does not adapt him- 
self to existing conditions, and demands that the game 
shall be a game no longer. It is the part of the truly 
sensible to mix with all people, either conniving readily 
at their folly, or affably erring like themselves. 

And the necessary driving power of all human action 
is ‘Philautia,’ Folly’s own sister: self-love. He who does 
not please himself effects little. Take away that condi- 
ment of life and the word of the orator cools, the poet is 
laughed at, the artist perishes with his art. 

Folly in the garb of pride, of vanity, of vainglory, is 
the hidden spring of all that is considered high and great 


THE PRAISE OF FOLLY 91 


in this world. The state with its posts of honour, patriot- 
ism and national pride; the stateliness of ceremonies, 
the delusion of caste and nobility—what is it but folly? 
War, the most foolish thing of all, is the origin of all 
heroism. What prompted the Deciuses, what Curtius, 
to sacrifice themselves? Vainglory. It is this folly 
which produces states; through her, empires, religion, 
law-courts, exist. 

This is bolder and more chilling than Machiavelli, 
more detached than Montaigne. But Erasmus will not 
have it credited to him: it is Folly who speaks. He 
purposely makes us tread the round of the circulus 
vitiosus, as in the old saw: A Cretan said, all Cretans are 
liars. 

Wisdom is to folly as reason is to passion. And there 
is much more passion than reason in the world. That 
which keeps the world going, the fount of life, is folly. 
For what else is love? Why do people marry, if not out 
of folly, which sees no objections? All enjoyment and 
amusement is only a condiment of folly. When a wise 
man wishes to become a father, he has first to play 
the fool. For what is more foolish than the game of 
procreation? 

Unperceived the orator has incorporated here with 
folly all that is vitality and the courage of life. Folly 
is spontaneous energy that no one can do without. He 
who is perfectly sensible and serious cannot live. The 
more people get away from me, Stultitia, the less they 
live. Why do we kiss and cuddle little children, if not 
because they are still so delightfully foolish. And what 
else makes youth so elegant? 

Now look at the truly serious and sensible. They 


92 ERASMUS 


are awkward at everything, at meal-time, at a dance, in 
playing, in social intercourse. If they have to buy, or 
to contract, things are sure to go wrong. Quintilian says 
that stage fright bespeaks the intelligent orator, who 
knows his faults. Right! But does not, then, Quin- 
tilian confess openly that wisdom is an impediment to 
good execution? And has not Stultitia the right to claim 
prudence for herself, if the wise, out of shame, out of 
bashfulness, undertake nothing in circumstances where 
fools pluckily set to work? 

Here Erasmus goes to the root of the matter in a. 
psychological sense. Indeed the consciousness of falling 
short in achievement is the brake clogging action, is the 
great inertia retarding the progress of the world. Did 
he know himself for one who is awkward when not bend- 
ing over his books, but confronting men and affairs? 

Folly is gaiety and lightheartedness, indispensable 
to happiness. The man of mere reason without passion 
is a stone image, blunt and without any human feeling, 
a spectre or monster, from whom all fly, deaf to all nat- 
ural emotions, susceptible neither to love nor compas- 
sion. Nothing escapes him, in nothing he errs; he sees 
through everything, he weighs everything accurately, he 
forgives nothing, he is only satisfied with himself; he 
alone is healthy; he alone is king, he alone is free. It 
is the hideous figure of the doctrinaire which Erasmus 
is thinking of. Which state, he exclaims, would desire 
such an absolutely wise man for a magistrate? 

He who devotes himself to tasting all the bitterness 
of life with wise insight would forthwith deprive himself 
of life. Only folly is a remedy: to err, to be mistaken, 
to be ignorant is to be human. How much better it is 


THE PRAISE OF FOLLY 93 


in marriage to be blind to a wife’s shortcomings than 
to make away with oneself out of jealousy and to fill the 
world with tragedy! Adulation is virtue. There is no 
cordial devotion without a little adulation. It is the 
soul of eloquence, of medicine and poetry; it is the honey 
and the sweetness of all human customs. 

Again a series of valuable social qualities is slyly in- 
corporated with folly: benevolence, kindness, inclination 
to approve and to admire. 

But especially to approve of oneself. There is no 
pleasing others without beginning by flattering ourselves 
a little and approving of ourselves. What would the 
world be if everyone was not proud of his standing, his 
calling, so that no person would change places with 
another in point of good appearance, of fancy, of good 
family, of landed property? 

Humbug is the right thing. Why should any one 
desire true erudition? The more incompetent a man, the 
pleasanter his life is and the more he is admired. Look 
at professors, poets, orators. Man’s mind is so made 
that he is more impressed by lies than by the truth. 
Go to church: if the priest deals with serious subjects 
the whole congregation is dozing, yawning, feeling bored. 
But when he begins to tell some cock-and-bull story, 
they awake, sit up, and hang on his lips. 

To be deceived, philosophers say, is a misfortune, but 
not to be deceived is a superlative misfortune. If it is 
human to err, why should a man be called unhappy be- 
cause he errs since he was so born and made, and it is 
the fate of all? Do we pity a man because he cannot fly 
or does not walk on four legs? We might as well call 
the horse unhappy because it does not learn grammar or 


94 ERASMUS 


eat cakes. No creature is unhappy, if it lives according 
to its nature. The sciences were invented to our utmost 
destruction; far from conducing to our happiness, they 
are even in its way, though for its sake they are sup- 
posed to have been invented. By the agency of evil 
demons they have stolen into human life with the other 
pests. For did not the simple-minded people of the 
Golden Age live happily, unprovided with any science, 
only led by nature and instinct? What did they want 
grammar for, when all spoke the same language? Why 
have dialectics, when there were no quarrels and no 
differences of opinion? Why jurisprudence, when there 
were no bad morals from which good laws sprang? They 
were too religious to investigate with impious curiosity 
the secrets of nature, the size, motions, influence of the 
stars, the hidden cause of things. 

It is the old idea, which germinated in antiquity, here 
lightly touched upon by Erasmus, afterwards proclaimed 
by Rousseau in bitter earnest: civilisation is a plague. 

Wisdom is misfortune, but self-conceit is happiness. 
Grammarians, who wield the sceptre of wisdom—school- 
masters, that is—would be the most wretched of all 
people if I, Folly, did not mitigate the discomforts of 
their miserable calling by a sort of sweet frenzy. But 
what holds good of schoolmasters, also holds good of 
poets, rhetors, authors. For them, too, all happiness 
merely consists in vanity and delusion. The lawyers are 
no better off and after them come the philosophers. Next 
there is a numerous procession of clergy: divines, monks, 
bishops, cardinals, popes, only interrupted by princes and 
courtiers. 


THE PRAISE OF FOLLY 95 


In the chapters’ which review these offices and callings, 
satire has shifted its ground a little. Throughout the 
work two themes are intertwined: that of salutary folly, 
which is true wisdom, and that of deluded wisdom, which 
is pure folly. As they are both put into the mouth of 
Folly, we should have to invert them both to get truth, 
if Folly . . . were not wisdom. Now it is clear that 
the first is the principal theme. Erasmus starts from it; 
and he returns to it. Only in the middle, as he reviews 
human accomplishments and dignities in their universal 
foolishness, the second theme predominates and the book 
becomes an ordinary satire on human folly, of which 
there are many though few are so delicate. But in the 
other parts it is something far deeper. 

Occasionally the satire runs somewhat off the line, 
when Stultitia directly censures what Erasmus wishes 
to censure; for instance: indulgences, silly belief in won- 
ders, selfish worship of the saints; or gamblers whom 
she, Folly, ought to praise; or the spirit of systematizing 
and levelling, and the jealousy of the monks. 

For contemporary readers the importance of the Laus 
Stultitiae was, to a great extent, in the direct satire. Its 
lasting value is in those passages where we truly grant 
that folly is wisdom and the reverse. Erasmus knows the 
aloofness of the ground of all things: all consistent think- 
ing out of the dogmas of faith leads to absurdity. Only 
look at the theological quiddities of effete scholasticism. 
The apostles would not have understood them: in the 
eyes of latter-day divines they would have been fools. 
Holy Scripture itself sides with folly. ‘“The foolishness 





1 Erasmus did not divide the book into chapters. It was done by 
an editor as late as 1765. 


96 ERASMUS 


of God is wiser than men,” says Saint Paul. “But God 
hath chosen the foolish things of the world.” “It pleased 
God by the foolishness (of preaching) to save them that — 
believe.” Christ loved the simple-minded and the igno- 
rant: children, women, poor fishermen, nay, even such 
animals as are farthest removed from vulpine cunning: 
the ass which he wished to ride, the dove, the lamb, the 
sheep. 

Here there is a great deal behind the seemingly light 
jest: “Christian religion seems in general to have some 
affinity with a certain sort of folly.’ Was it not thought 
the apostles were full of new wine? And did not the 
judge say: ‘Paul, thou art beside thyself.’ When are 
we beside ourselves? When the spirit breaks its fetters 
and tries to escape from its prison and aspires to liberty. 
That is madness, but it is also other-worldliness and the 
highest wisdom. True happiness is in selflessness, in the 
furor of lovers, whom Plato calls happiest of all. The 
more absolute love is, the greater and more rapturous is 
the frenzy. Heavenly bliss itself is the greatest insanity; 
truly pious people enjoy its shadow on earth already in 
their meditations. 

Here Stultitia breaks off her discourse, apologising in a 
few words in case she may have been too petulant or 
talkative, and leaves the pulpit. “So farewell, applaud, 
live happily, and drink, Moria’s illustrious initiates.” 

It was an unrivaled feat of art even in these last 
chapters neither to lose the light comical touch, nor to 
lapse into undisguised profanation. It was only feasible 
by veritable dancing on the tight-rope of sophistry. In 
the Moria Erasmus is all the time hovering on the brink 
of profound truths. But what a boon it was—still 


THE PRAISE OF FOLLY 97 


granted to those times—to be able to treat of all this 
in a vein of pleasantry. For this should be impressed 
upon our minds: that the Moriae Encomium is a true, 
gay jest. The laugh is more delicate, but no less hearty 
than Rabelais’. “Valete, plaudite, vivite, bibite.” ‘All 
common people abound to such a degree, and everywhere 
in so many forms of folly, that a thousand Democrits 
would be insufficient to laugh at them all (and they 
would require another Democrit to laugh at them).” 

How could one take the Moria too seriously, when even 
More’s Utopia, which is a true companion-piece to it 
and makes such a grave impression on us, is treated by 
its author and Erasmus as a mere jest? ‘There is a 
place where the Laus seems to touch both More and 
Rabelais; the place where Stultitia speaks of her father, 
Plutus, the god of wealth, at whose beck all things are 
turned topsy-turvy, according to whose will all human 
affairs are regulated—war and peace, government and 
counsel, justice and treaties. He has begotten her on the 
nymph Youth, not a senile, purblind Plutus, but a fresh 
god, warm with youth and nectar, like another Gar- 
gantua. 

The figure of Folly, of gigantic size, looms large in the 
period of the Renaissance. She wears a fool’s cap and 
bells. People laughed loudly and with unconcern at all 
that was foolish, without discriminating between species 
of folly. It is remarkable that even in the Laus, delicate 
as it is, the author does not distinguish between the 
unwise or the silly, between fools and lunatics. Holbein, 
illustrating Erasmus, knows but of one representation of 
a fool: with a staff and ass’s ears. Erasmus speaks with- 
out clear transition, now of foolish persons and now of 


98 ERASMUS 


real lunatics. They are happiest of all, he makes Stultitia 
say: they are not frightened by spectres and apparitions; 
they are not tortured by the fear of impending calami- 
ties; everywhere they bring mirth, jests, frolic and 
laughter. Evidently he here means harmless imbeciles, 
who, indeed, were often used as jesters. This identi- 
fication of denseness and insanity is kept up, however, 
like the confusion of the comic and the simply ridiculous, 
and all this is well calculated to make us feel how wide 
the gap has already become that separates us from 
Erasmus. 


In after years he always spoke slightingly of his Moria. 
He considered it so unimportant, he says, as to be un- 
worthy of publication, but yet no other had been 
received with so much applause. It was a trifle and not 
at all in keeping with his character. More had made him 
write it, as if a camel were made to dance. But these 
disparaging utterances were not without a secondary 
purpose. The Moria had not brought him only success 
and pleasure. The exceedingly susceptible age in which 
he lived had taken the satire in very bad part, where it 
seemed to glance at offices and orders, although in his 
preface he had tried to safeguard himself from the re- 
proach of irreverence. His airy play with the texts of 
Holy Scripture had been too venturesome for many. His 
friend Martin van Dorp upbraided him with having 
made a mock of eternal life. Erasmus did what he could 
to convince evil-thinkers that the purpose of the Moria 
was no other than to exhort people to be virtuous. In 
affirming this he did his work injustice: it was much 
more than that. But in 1515 he was no longer what he 


THE PRAISE OF FOLLY 99 


had been in 1509. Repeatedly he had been obliged to 
defend his most witty work. Had he known that it 
would offend, he might have kept it back, he writes in 
1517 to an acquaintance at Louvain. Even towards the 
end of his life, he warded off the insinuations of Alberto 
Pio of Carpi in a lengthy expostulation. 

Erasmus made no further ventures in the genre of the 
Praise of Folly. One might consider the treatise Lingua, 
which he published in 1525, as an attempt to make a 
companion-piece to the Moria. The book is called “Of 
the Use and Abuse of the Tongue.” In the opening 
pages there is something that reminds us of the style of 
the Laus, but it lacks all the charm both of form and of 
thought. 

Should one pity Erasmus because, of all his publica- 
tions, collected in ten folio volumes, only the Praise of 
Folly has remained a really popular book? It 1s, together 
with the Colloquies, perhaps the only one of his works 
that is still read for its own sake. The rest is now only 
studied from a historical point of view, for the sake 
of becoming acquainted with his person or his times. It 
seems to me that perfect justice has been done in this 
case. The Praise of Folly is his best work. He wrote 
other books, more erudite, some more pious,—some per- 
haps of equal or greater influence on his time. But each 
has had its day. Moriae Encomium alone was to be im- 
mortal. For only when humour illuminated that mind 
did it become truly profound. In the Praise of Folly 
Erasmus gave something that no one else could have 
given to the world, 


Xx 
THIRD STAY IN ENGLAND 


THIRD STAY IN ENGLAND: 1509-1514-NO INFORMATION 
ABOUT TWO YEARS OF ERASMUS’ LIFE: 1509 SUMMER 
TILL 1511 SPRING—POVERTY—EKASMUS AT CAMBRIDGE 
—RELATIONS WITH BADIUS, THE PARIS PUBLISHER—A 
MISTAKE PROFITABLE TO JOHN FROBEN AT BASLE— 
ERASMUS LEAVES ENGLAND: 1514—JULIUS EXCLUSUS— 
EPISTLE AGAINST WAR. 

From the moment when Erasmus, back from Italy in 
the early summer of 1509, is hidden from view in the 
house of More, to write the Praise of Folly, until nearly 
» two years later when he comes to view again on the road 
to Paris to have the book printed by Gilles Gourmont, 
“every trace of his life has been obliterated. Of the letters 
which during that period he wrote and received, not a 
single one has been preserved. Perhaps it was the hap- 
piest time of his life, for it was partly spent with his tried 
patron, Mountjoy, and also in the house of More in that 
noble and witty circle which to Erasmus appeared ideal. 
That house was also frequented by the friend whom, 
during his former sojourn in England Erasmus had made, 
and whose mind was perhaps more congenial to him than 
any other, Andrew Ammonius. It is not improbable 
that during these months he was able to work without 
interruption at the studies to which he was irresistibly 
attracted, without cares as to the immediate future, and 
not yet burdened by excessive renown, which afterwards 
was to cause him as much trouble and loss as joy. 

That future was still uncertain. As soon as he no 


100 


THIRD STAY IN ENGLAND 101 


longer enjoys More’s hospitality, the difficulties and com- 
plaints reeommence. Continual poverty, uncertainty and 
dependence were extraordinarily galling to a mind re- 
quiring above all things liberty. At Paris he charged 
Badius with a new, revised edition of the Adagia, though 
the Aldine might still be had there at a moderate price. 
The Laus, which had just appeared at Gourmont’s, was 
reprinted at Strassburg as early as 1511, with a courteous 
letter by Jacob Wimpfeling to Erasmus, but evidently 
without his being consulted in the matter. By that time 
he was back in England, had been laid up in London with 
a bad attack of the sweating sickness, and thence had 
gone to Queens’ College, Cambridge, where he had resided 
before. From Cambridge he writes to Colet, August 
24th, 1511, in a vein of comical despair. The journey 
from London had been disastrous: a lame horse, no vic- 
tuals for the road, rain and thunder. “But I am almost 
pleased at this, I see the track of Christian poverty.” 
A chance to make some money he does not see; he will 
be obliged to spend everything he can wrest from his 
Maecenases,—he, born under a wrathful Mercury. 

This may sound somewhat gloomier than it was meant, 
but a few weeks later he writes again: ‘ ‘Oh, this begging; 
you laugh at me, I know. But I hate myself for it and 
am fully determined, either to obtain some fortune, 
which will relieve me from cringing, or to imitate 
Diogenes altogether.” This refers to a dedication of a 
translation of Basilius’ Commentaries on Isaiah to John 
Fisher, the bishop of Rochester. 

Colet, who had never known pecuniary cares himself, 
did not well understand these sallies of Erasmus. He 
replies to them with delicate irony and covert rebuke, 


102 ERASMUS 


which Erasmus, in his turn, pretends not to understand. 
He was now “in want in the midst of plenty,” “simul et 
in media copia et in summa inopia.” That is to say, he 
was engaged in preparing for Badius’ press the De Copia 
verborum ac reunm, formerly begun at Paris; it was 
dedicated to Colet. “I ask you, who can be more impu- 
dent or abject than I, who for such a long time already 
have been openly begging in England?” 

Writing to Ammonius he bitterly regrets having left 
Rome and Italy; how prosperity had smiled upon him 
there! In the same way he would afterwards lament 
that he had not permanently established himself in 
England. If he had only embraced the opportunity! 
he thinks. Was not Erasmus rather one of those people 
whom good fortune cannot help? 

He remained in trouble and his tone grows more bitter. 
“T am preparing some bait against the Ist of January, 
though it is pretty sure to be in vain,” he writes to Am- 
monius, referring to new translations of Lucian and 
Plutarch. 

At Cambridge Erasmus lectured on divinity and Greek, 
but it brought him little success and still less profit. The 
long wished-for prebend, indeed, had at last been given 
him, in the form of the rectory of Adington, in Kent, to 
which Archbishop William Warham, his patron, ap- 
pointed him in 1512. Instead of residing he was 
allowed to draw a pension of twenty pounds a year. 
The archbishop affirms explicitly that, contrary to his 
custom, he had granted this favour to Erasmus, be- 
cause he, “a light of learning in Latin and Greek litera- 
ture, had, out of love for England, disdained to live in 
Italy, France, or Germany, in order to pass the rest of 


THIRD STAY IN ENGLAND 103 


his life, here, with his friends.” We see how nations 
already begin to vie with each other for the honour of 
sheltering Erasmus. 

Relief from all cares the post did not bring. Inter- 
course and correspondence with Colet was a little soured 
under the light veil of jests and kindness by his constant 
need of money. Seeking new resources by undertaking 
new labours, or preparing new editions of his old books, 
remained a hard necessity for Erasmus. The great works 
upon which he had set his heart, and to which he had 
given all his energies at Cambridge, held out no promise 
of immediate profit. His serious theological labours « 
ranked above all others; and in these hard years, he 
devoted his best strength to preparation for the great 
edition of Jerome’s works and emendation of the text 
of the New Testament, a task inspired, encouraged and 
promoted by Colet. 

For his living other books had to serve. He had a 
sufficient number now, and the printers were eager 
enough about them, though the profit which the author 
made by them was not large. After leaving Aldus at 
Venice, Erasmus had returned to the publisher who had 
printed for him as early as 1505,—Josse Badius, of Bra- 
bant, who, at Paris, had established the Ascensian Press 
(called after his native place, Assche) and who, a scholar 
himself, rivaled Aldus in point of the accuracy of his 
editions of the classics. At the time when Erasmus took 
the Moria to Gourmont, at Paris, he had charged Badius 
with a new edition, still to be revised, of the Adagia. 
Why the Moria was published by another, we cannot 
tell; perhaps Badius did not like it at first. From the 
Adagia he promised himself the more profit, but that 


104 ERASMUS 


was a long work, the alterations and preface of which he 
was still waiting for Erasmus to send. He felt very sure 
of his ground, for everyone knew that he, Badius, was 
preparing the new edition. Yet a rumour reached him 
that in Germany the Aldine edition was being reprinted. 
So there was some hurry to finish it, he wrote to Eras- 
mus in May, 1512. 

Badius, meanwhile, had much more work of Erasmus 
in hand, or on approval: the Copia, which, shortly after- 
wards, was published by him; the Moria, of which, at 
the same time, a new edition, the fifth, already had ap- 
peared; the dialogues by Lucian; the Euripides and 
Seneca translations, which were to follow. He hoped to 
add Jerome’s letters to these. For the Adagta they had 
agreed upon a copy-fee of fifteen guilders; for Jerome’s 
letters Badius was willing to give the same sum and as 
much again for the rest of the consignment. “Ah, you 
will say, what a very small sum! I own that by no 
remuneration could your genius, industry, knowledge and 
labour be requited, but the gods will requite you and 
your own virtue will be the finest reward. You have 
already deserved exceedingly well of Greek and Roman 
literature; you will in this same way deserve well of 
sacred and divine, and you will help your little Badius, 
who has a numerous family and no earnings besides his 
daily trade.” 

Erasmus must have smiled ruefully on receiving 
Badius’ letter. But he accepted the proposal readily. 
He promised to prepare everything for the press and, 
on the 5th of January, 1513, he finished, in London, the 
preface to the revised Adagia, for which Badius was 
waiting. But then something happened. An agent who 


THIRD STAY IN ENGLAND 105 


acted as a mediator with authors for several publish- 
ers in Germany and France, one Francis Berkman, of 
Cologne, took the revised copy of the Adagia with the 
preface entrusted to him by Erasmus to hand over to 
Badius, not to Paris, but to Basle, to Johannes Froben, < 
who had just, without Erasmus’ leave, reprinted the Ve- 
netian edition! Erasmus pretended to be indignant at this 
mistake or perfidy, but it is only too clear that he did 
not regret it. Half a year later he betook himself with 
bag and baggage to Basle, to enter with that same 
Froben into those most cordial relations by which their 
names are united. Beatus Rhenanus, afterwards, made 
no secret of the fact that a connection with the house of 
Froben, then still called Amerbach and Froben, had 
seemed attractive to Erasmus ever since he had heard 
of the Adagia being reprinted. 

Without conclusive proofs of his complicity, we do 
not like to accuse Erasmus of perfidy towards Badius, 
though his attitude is curious, to say the least. But we 
do want to commemorate the dignified tone in which 
Badius, who held strict notions, as those times went, 
about copyright, replied, when Berckman afterwards had 
come to offer him a sort of explanation of the case. He 
declares himself satisfied, though Erasmus had, since that 
time, caused him losses in more ways, amongst others by 
printing a new edition of the Copia at Strassburg. “Tf, 
however, it is agreeable to your interests and honour, I 
shall suffer it, and that with equanimity.” Their rela- 
tions were not broken off. In all this we should not lose 
sight of the fact that publishing at that time was yet a . 
quite new commercial phenomenon and that new com- 
mercial forms and relations of trade are wont to be 


106 ERASMUS 


characterised by uncertainty, confusion and lack of 
established business morals. 

The stay at Cambridge gradually became irksome to 
Erasmus. “For some months already,” he writes to Am- 
monius, in November, 1518, “we have been leading a true 
snail’s life, staying at home and plodding. It is very 
lonely here; most people have gone for fear of the plague, 
but even when they are all here, it is lonely.” The cost 
of sustenance is unbearable and he makes no money at 
all. If he does not succeed, that winter, in making a 
nest for himself, he is resolved to fly away, he does not 
know where. “If to no other end, to die elsewhere.” 

Added to the stress of circumstances, the plague, reap- 
pearing again and again, and attacks of his kidney- 
trouble, there came the state of war, which depressed 
and alarmed Erasmus. In the spring of 1518 the English 
raid on France, long prepared, took place. In co-opera- 
tion with Maximilian’s army the English had beaten the 
French near Guinegate and compelled Therouanne to 
surrender, and afterwards Tournay. Meanwhile the 
Scotch invaded England, to be decisively beaten near 
Flodden. Their king, James IV, perished together with 
his natural son, Erasmus’ pupil and travelling compan- 
ion in Italy, Alexander, archbishop of Saint Andrews. 

Crowned with martial fame, Henry VIII returned in 
November to meet his parliament. Erasmus did not 
share the universal joy and enthusiastic admiration. “We 
are circumscribed here by the plague, threatened by 
robbers; we drink wine of the worst (because there is 
no import from France), but, io triwmphe! we are the 
conquerors of the world!” 

His deep aversion to the clamour of war, and all it 


THIRD STAY IN ENGLAND 107 


represented, stimulated Erasmus’ satirical faculties. It 
is true that he flattered the English national pride by 
an epigram on the rout of the French near Guinegate, 
but soon he went deeper. He remembered how war 
had impeded his movements in Italy; how the entry 
of the pope-conqueror, Julius II, into Bologna had 
outraged his feelings. “The high-priest Julius wages 
war, conquers, triumphs and truly plays the part of 
Julius (Caesar)” he had written then. Pope Julius, he 
thought, had been the cause of all the wars spreading 
more and more over Europe. Now the pope had died 
in the beginning of the year 1513. 

And in the deepest secrecy, between his work on the 
New Testament and Jerome, Erasmus took revenge on 
the martial pope, for the misery of the times, by writing 
the masterly satire, entitled, Julius exclusus, in which 
the pope appears in all his glory before the gate of the 
Heavenly Paradise to plead his cause and find himself 
excluded. The theme was not new to him; for had he 
not made something similar in the witty Cain fable, by 
which, at one time, he had cheered a dinner-party at 
Oxford? But that was an innocent jest to which his 
pious fellow-guests had listened with pleasure. To the 
satire about the defunct pope many would, no doubt, 
also gladly listen, but Erasmus had to be careful about 
it. The folly of all the world might be ridiculed, but 
not the worldly propensities of the recently deceased 
pope. Therefore, though he helped in circulating copies 
of the manuscript, Erasmus did his utmost, for the rest 
of his life, to preserve its anonymity, and when it was 
universally known and had appeared in print, and he 
was presumed to be the author, he always cautiously 


108 ERASMUS 


denied the fact; although he was careful to use such 
terms as to avoid a formal denial. The first edition of 
the Julius was published at Basle, not by Froben, Eras- 
mus’ ordinary publisher, but by Cratander, probably in 
the year 1518. 

Erasmus’ need of protesting against warfare had not 
been satisfied by writing the Julius. In March, 1514, no 
longer at Cambridge, but in London, he wrote a letter to 
his former patron, the abbot of Saint Bertin, Anthony of 
Bergen, in which he enlarges upon the folly of waging war. 
Would that a Christian peace were concluded between 
Christian princes! Perhaps the abbot might contribute 
to that consummation through his influence with the 
youthful Charles V and especially with his grandfather 
Maximilian. Erasmus states quite frankly that the war 
has suddenly changed the spirit of England. He would 
like to return to his native country if the prince would 
procure him the means to live there in peace. It is a 
remarkable fact and of true Erasmian naiveté that he 
cannot help mixing up his personal interests with his 
sincere indignation at the atrocities disgracing a man and 
a Christian. “The war has suddenly altered the spirit 
of this island. The cost of living rises every day and 
generosity decreases. Through lack of wine I nearly 
perished by gravel, contracted by taking bad stuff. We 
are confined in this island, more than ever, so that even 
letters are not carried abroad.” 

This was the first of Erasmus’ anti-war writings. He 
expanded it into the Adage Dulce bellum inexpertis, 
which was inserted into the Adagia edition of 1515, pub- 
lished by Froben and afterwards also printed separately. 


THIRD STAY IN ENGLAND 109 


Hereafter we shall follow up this line of Erasmus’ ideas, 
as a whole. 

Though the summer of 1514 was to bring peace be- 
tween England and France, Erasmus had now definitely 
made up his mind to leave England. He sent his trunks 
to Antwerp, to his friend Peter Gilles and prepared to go 
to the Netherlands, after a short visit to Mountjoy at 
the castle of Hammes near Calais. Shortly before his 
departure from London he had a curious interview with 
a papal diplomat, working in the cause of peace, 
Count Canossa, at Ammonius’ house on the Thames. 
Ammonius passed him off on Erasmus as a merchant. 
After the meal the Italian sounded him as to a possible 
return to Rome, where he might be the first in place 
instead of living alone among a barbarous nation. Eras- 
mus replied that he lived in a land that contained the 
greatest number of excellent scholars among whom he 
would be content with the humblest place. This com- 
pliment was his farewell to England, which had favoured 
him so. Some days later, in the first half of July, 1514,< 
he was on the other side of the Channel. On three more 
occasions he paid short visits to England, but he lived 
there no more. 


XI 
A LIGHT OF THEOLOGY 


ON THE WAY TO SUCCESS AND SATISFACTION—HIS PRIOR 
CALLS HIM BACK TO STEYN—HE REFUSES TO COMPLY— 
FIRST JOURNEY TO BASLE: 1514-1516—CORDIAL WELCOME 
IN GERMANY—JOHN FROBEN—EDITIONS OF JEROME AND 
THE NEW TESTAMENT—A COUNCILLOR TO PRINCE 
CHARLES: INSTITUTIO PRINCIPIS CHRISTIANI, 1515— 
DEFINITIVE DISPENSATION FROM MONASTIC VOWS: 1517— 
FAME—ERASMUS AS A SPIRITUAL CENTRE—HIS CORRE- 
SPONDENCE—LETTER-WRITING AS AN ART—ITS DAN- 
GERS—A GLORIOUS AGE AT HAND. 

Erasmus had, as was usual with him, enveloped his 
departure from England with mystery. It was given out 
that he was going to Rome to redeem a pledge. Prob- 
ably he had already determined to try his fortune in the 
Netherlands; not in Holland, but in the neighbourhood 
of the princely court in Brabant. The chief object of 
his journey, however, was to Froben’s printing-office at 
Basle, personally to supervise the publication of the 
numerous works, old and new, which he brought with 
him, among them the material for his chosen task, 
the New Testament and Jerome, by which he hoped to 
effect the restoration of theology, which he had long 
felt to be his life-work. It is easy thus to imagine his 
anxiety when during the crossing he discovered that his 
handbag, containing the manuscripts, was found to have 
been taken on board another ship. He felt bereft, hav- 
ing lost the labour of so many years; a sorrow so great, 
he writes, as only parents can feel at the loss of their 
children. 


110 


A LIGHT OF THEOLOGY 111 


To his joy, however, he found his manuscripts safe on 
the other side. At the castle of Hammes near Calais he 
stayed for some days, the guest of Mountjoy. There on 
the 7th of July a letter found him, written on the 18th of 
April, by his superior, the prior of Steyn, his old friend 
Servatius Rogerus, recalling him to the monastery after 
so many years of absence. The letter had already been 
in the hands of more than one prying person, before it 
reached him by mere chance. 

It was a terrific blow, which struck him in the midst 
of his course to his highest aspirations. Erasmus took 
counsel for a day and then sent a refusal. To his old 
friend, in addressing whom he always found the most 
serious accents of his being, he wrote a letter which he 
meant to be a justification and which was self-contempla- 
tion, much deeper and more sincere than the one which, 
at a momentous turning-point of his life, had drawn 
from him his “Carmen Alpestre.” 

He calls upon God to be his witness that he would fol- 
low the purest inspiration of his life. But to return to 
the monastery! He reminds Servatius of the circum- 
stances under which he entered it, as they lived in his 
memory: the pressure of his relations, his false modesty. 
He points out to him how ill monastic life had suited his 
constitution, how it outraged his love of freedom, how 
detrimental it would be to his delicate health, if now 
resumed. Had he, then, lived a worse life in the world? 
Literature had kept him from many vices. His restless 
life could not redound to his dishonour, though only 
with diffidence did he dare to appeal to the examples 
of Solon, Pythagoras, Paul and his favourite Jerome. 
Had he not everywhere won recognition from friends 


112 ERASMUS 


and patrons? He enumerates them: cardinals, arch- 
bishops, bishops, Mountjoy, the universities of Oxford 
and Cambridge, and, lastly, John Colet. Was there, 
then, any objection to his works: the Hnchiridion, the 
Adagia? (He did not mention the Moria.) The best 
was still to follow: Jerome and the New Testament. 
The fact that, since his stay in Italy, he had laid aside 
the habit of his order and wore a common clerical dress, 
he could excuse on a number of grounds. 

The conclusion was: I shall not return to Holland. “I 
know that I shall not be able to stand the air and the 
food there; all eyes will be directed to me. I shall return 
to the country, an old and grey man, who left it as a 
youth; I shall return a valetudinarian; I shall be exposed 
to the contempt, even of the lowest, I, who am accus- 
tomed to be honoured even by the greatest.” “It is not 
possible,” he concludes, “to speak out frankly in a letter. 
I am now going to Basle and thence to Rome, perhaps, 
but on my return I shall try to visit you... . I 
have heard of the deaths of William, Francis and Andrew 
(his old Dutch friends). Remember me to Master Henry 
and the others who live with you; I am disposed towards 
them as befits me. For those old tragedies I ascribe to 
my errors, or if you like to my fate. Do not omit to 
commend me to Christ in your prayers. If I knew for 
sure that it would be pleasing to Him that I should return 
to live with you, I should prepare for the journey this 
very day. Farewell, my former sweetest companion, now 
my venerable father.” 

Underlying the immediate motives of his high theolog- 
ical aspirations, Erasmus in refusing was doubtless actu- 


A LIGHT OF THEOLOGY 113 


ated by his ancient, inveterate, psychological incentives 
of disgust and shame. 


Through the southern Netherlands, where he visited 
several friends and patrons and renewed his acquaintance 
with the university of Louvain, Erasmus turned to the 
Rhine and reached Basle in the second half of August, 
1514. There the pleasures of fame awaited him as he had 
not yet tasted them. The German humanists hailed him 
as the light of the world—in letters, receptions, and ban- 
quets. They were more solemn and enthusiastic than 
Erasmus had found the scholars of France, England and 
Italy, to say nothing of his compatriots; and they ap- 
plauded him emphatically as being a German himself 
and an ornament of Germany. At his first meeting 
with Froben, Erasmus permitted himself the pleasure of 
a jocular deception: he pretended to be a friend and 
agent of himself, to enjoy to the full the joy of being 
recognised. The German environment was rather to his 
mind: “My Germany which to my regret and shame I 
got to know so late.” 

Soon the work for which he had come was in full 
swing. He was in his element once more, as he had 
been at Venice six years before: working hard in a large 
printing office, surrounded by scholars, who heaped upon 
him homage and kindness in those rare moments of 
leisure which he permitted himself. I move in a most 
agreeable Museon: so many men of learning, and of such 
exceptional learning!” 

Some translations of the lesser works of Plutarch 
were published by Froben in August. The Adagia was 
passing through the press again with corrections and 


114 ERASMUS 


additions, and the preface which was originally destined 
for Badius. At the same time Dirck Maertensz, at 
Louvain, was also at work for Erasmus, who had, on 
passing through the town, entrusted him with a collec- 
tion of easy Latin texts; also M. Schurer at Strassburg, 
who prepared the Parabolae sive similia for him. For 
Froben, too, Erasmus was engaged on a Seneca, which 
appeared in 1515, together with a work on Latin con- 
struction. But Jerome and the New Testament remained 
his chief occupation. 

Jerome’s works had been Erasmus’ love in early 
youth, especially his letters. The plan of preparing a 
correct edition of the great Father of the Church was 
conceived in 1500, if not earlier, and he had worked at it 
ever since, at intervals. In 1513 he writes to Ammonius: 
“My enthusiasm for emending and annotating Jerome 
is such that I feel as though inspired by some god. I 
have almost completely emended him already by col- 
lating many old manuscripts. And this I do at in- 
credibly great expense.” In 1512 he negotiated with 
Badius about an edition of the letters. Now Froben’s 
partner, John Amerbach, who died before Erasmus’ 
arrival, had been engaged for years on an edition of 
Jerome. Several scholars, Reuchlin among others, had 
assisted in the undertaking when Erasmus offered himself 
and all his material. He became the actual editor. Of 
the nine volumes, in which Froben published the work 
in 1516, the first four contained Erasmus’ edition of 
Jerome’s letters; the others had been corrected by him 
and provided with forewords. 

His work upon the New Testament was, if possible, still 
nearer his heart. By its growth it had gradually changed 


A LIGHT OF THEOLOGY 115 


its nature. Since the time when Valla’s Annotationes had 
directed his attention to textual criticism of the Vulgate, 
Erasmus had, probably, during his second stay in Eng- 
land, from 1505 to 1506 at the instance of Colet, made a 
new translation of the New Testament from the Greek 
original, which translation differed greatly from the Vul- 
gate. Besides Colet, few had seen it. Later, Krasmus 
understood it was necessary to publish also a new edition 
of the Greek text, with his notes. As to this he had 
made a provisional arrangement with Froben, shortly 
after his arrival at Basle. Afterwards he considered that 
it would be better to have it printed in Italy, and was 
on the point of going there, when, possibly persuaded by 
new offers from Froben, he suddenly changed his plan of 
travel and in the spring of 1515 made a short trip to 
England;—probably, among other reasons, for the pur- 
pose of securing a copy of his translation of the New 
Testament, which he had left behind there. In the sum- 
mer he was back at Basle and resumed the work in Fro- 
ben’s printing office. In the beginning of 1516 the 
Novum Instrumentum appeared, containing the purified 
Greek text with notes, together with a Latin translation 
in which Erasmus had altered too great deviations from 
the Vulgate. 

From the moment of the appearance of two such im- 
portant and, as regards the second, such daring theolog- 
ical works by Erasmus as Jerome and the New Testa- 
ment, we may say that he had made himself the centre 
of the scientific study of divinity, as he was at the same 
time the centre and touchstone of classic erudition 
and literary taste. His authority constantly increased 


116 ERASMUS 


in all countries, his correspondence was prodigiously 
augmented. 

But while his mental growth was accomplished, his 
financial position was not assured. The years 1515 to 
1517 are among the most restless of his life; he is still 
looking out for every chance which presents itself, a 
canonry at Tournay, a prebend in England, a bishopric 
in Sicily, always half jocularly regretting the good chances 
he missed in former times, jesting about his pursuit of 
fortune, lamenting about his “spouse, execrable poverty, 
which even yet I have not succeeded in shaking off my 
shoulders.” And, after all, ever more the victim of his 
own restlessness than of the disfavour of fate. He is now 
50 years old and still he is, as he says, “sowing without 
knowing what I shall reap.” ‘This, however, only refers 
to his career, not to his life-work. 

In the course of 1515 a new and promising patron, 
John le Sauvage, chancellor of Brabant, had succeeded 
in procuring for him the title of councillor of the prince, 
the youthful Charles V. In the beginning of 1516 he was 
nominated: it was a mere title of honour, promising a 
yearly pension of 200 florins, which, however, was paid 
but irregularly. To habilitate himself as a councillor of 
the prince, Erasmus wrote the Institutio Principis Chris- 
tiani, a treatise about the education of a prince, which 
in accordance with Erasmus’ nature and _ inclination 
deals rather with moral than with political matters, and 
is in striking contrast indeed with that other work, writ- 
ten some years earlier, il Principe by Machiavelli. 

When his work at Basle ceased for the time being, — 
in the spring of 1516, Erasmus journeyed to the Nether- 
lands. At Brussels he met the chancellor, who, in addi- 


A LIGHT OF THEOLOGY Wy 


tion to the Prince’s pension, procured him a prebend at 
Courtray, which, like the English benefice mentioned 
above, was compounded for by money payments. At 
Antwerp lived one of the great friends who helped in 
his support all his life: Peter Gilles, the young town- 
clerk, in whose house he stayed as often as he came to 
Antwerp. Peter Gilles is the man who figures in More’s 
Utopia as the person in whose garden the sailor tells 
his experiences; it was in these days that Gilles helped 
Dirck Maertensz, at Louvain, to pass the first edition 
of the Utopia through the press. Later Quentin Metsys 
was to paint him and Erasmus, joined in a diptych; a 
present for Thomas More and for us a vivid memorial 
of one of the best things Erasmus ever knew: this triple 
friendship. 

In the summer of 1516 Erasmus made another short 
trip to England. He stayed with More, saw Colet again, 
also Warham, Fisher, and the other friends. But it was 
not to visit old friends that he went there. A pressing 
and delicate matter impelled him. Now that prebends 
and church dignities began to be presented to him, it 
was more urgent than ever that the impediments in the 
way of a free ecclesiastical career should be permanently 
obviated. He was provided with a dispensation of Pope 
Julius II, authorising him to accept English prebends, 
and another exempting him from the obligation of wear- 
ing the habit of his order. But both were of limited 
scope, and insufficient. The fervent impatience with 
which he conducted this matter of his definite discharge 
from the order makes it probable that, as Dr. Allen pre- 
sumes, the threat of his recall to Steyn had, since his 


118 ERASMUS 


refusal to Servatius in 1514, hung over his head. There 
was nothing he feared and detested so much. 

With his friend Ammonius he drew up, in London, 
a very elaborate paper, addressed to the apostolic chan- 
cery, in which he recounts the story of his own life as 
that of one Florentius: his half-enforced entrance to the 
monastery, the troubles which monastic life had brought 
him, the circumstances which had induced him to lay his 
monk’s dress aside. It is a passionate apology, pathetic 
and ornate. The letter, as we know it, does not contain 
a direct request. In an appendix at the end, written in 
cipher, of which he sent the key in sympathetic ink in 
another letter, the chancery was requested to obviate the 
impediments which Erasmus’ illegitimate birth placed in 
the way of his promotion. The addressee, Lambertus 
Grunnius, apostolic secretary, was most probably an 
imaginary personage. So much mystery did Erasmus 
use when his vital interests were at stake. 

The bishop of Worcester, Silvestro Gigli, who was set- 
ting out to the Lateran Council, as the envoy of England, 
took upon himself to deliver the letter and to plead 
Erasmus’ cause. Erasmus having meanwhile at the end 
of August returned to the Netherlands, awaited the 
upshot of his kind offices in the greatest suspense. The 
matter was finally settled in January, 1517. In two 
letters bearing the signature of Sadolet, Leo X condoned 
Erasmus’ transgressions of ecclesiastical law, relieved him 
of the obligation to wear the dress of his order, allowed 
him to live in the world and authorised him to hold 





1 The name Grunnius may have been taken from Jerome’s epistles, 
where it is a nickname for a certain Ruffinus, whom Jerome disliked 
very much. It appears again in a letter of 5 March, 1531, LB. X 
1590 A. 


A LIGHT OF THEOLOGY 119 


church benefices in spite of any disqualifications arising 
from illegitimacy of birth. 

So much his great fame had now achieved. The Pope 
had moreover accepted the dedication of the edition of 
the New Testament, and had, through Sadolet, expressed 
himself in very gracious terms about Erasmus’ work in 
general. Rome itself seemed to further his endeavours 
in all respects. 

Erasmus now thought of establishing himself perma- 
nently in the Netherlands, to which everything pointed. 
Louvain seemed to be the most suitable abode, the 
centre of studies, where he had already spent two 
years in former times. But Louvain did not attract him. 
It was the stronghold of conservative theology. Martin 
van Dorp, a Dutchman like Erasmus, and professor of 
divinity at Louvain, had, in 1514, in the name of his 
faculty, rebuked Erasmus in a letter for the audacity 
of the Praise of Folly, his derision of divines and also his 
temerity in correcting the text of the New Testament. 
Erasmus had defended himself elaborately. At present 
war was being waged in a much wider field: for or against 
Reuchlin, the great Hebrew scholar, for whom the authors 
of the Epistolae obscurorum virorum had so sensationally 
taken up the cudgels. At Louvain Erasmus was regarded 
with the same suspicion with which he distrusted Dorp 
and the other Louvain divines. He stayed during the 
remainder of 1516 and the first half of 1517 at Antwerp, 
Brussels and Ghent, often in the house of Peter Gilles. 
In February, 1517, there came tempting offers from 
France. Budaeus, Cop, Etienne Poncher, bishop of Paris, 
wrote to him that the king, the youthful Francis I, would 
present him with a generous prebend if he would come 


120 ERASMUS 


to Paris. Erasmus, always shy of being tied down, only 
wrote polite, evasive answers, and did not go. 


In the meantime he received the news of the papal 
absolution. In connection with this he had, once more, 
to visit England, little dreaming that it would be the last 
time he should set foot on British soil. In Ammonius’ 
house of Saint Stephen’s Chapel at Westminster on the 
9th of April, 1517, the ceremony of absolution took place, 
ridding Erasmus for good of the nightmare which had 
oppressed him since his youth. He was free! 

Invitations and specious promises now came to him 
from all sides. Mountjoy and Wolsey spoke of high 
ecclesiastical honours which awaited him in England. 
Budaeus kept pressing him to remove to France. Car- 
dinal Ximenes wanted to attach him to the University 
of Alcala, in Spain. The duke of Saxony offered him a 
chair at Leipsic. Pirckheimer boasted of the perfections 
of the free imperial city of Nuremberg. Erasmus, mean- 
while, overwhelmed again with the labour of writing and 
editing, according to his wont, did not definitely decline 
any of these offers; neither did he accept any. He 
always wanted to keep all his strings on his bow at the 
same time. In the early summer of 1517 he was asked 
to accompany the court of the youthful Charles, who was 
on the point of leaving the Netherlands, for Spain. But 
he declined. His departure to Spain would have meant 
for him a long interruption of immediate contact with 
the great publishing centres, Basle, Louvain, Strassburg, 
Paris, and that, in its turn, would have meant postpone- 
ment of his life-work. When, in the beginning of July, 


A LIGHT OF THEOLOGY 121 


the prince set out for Middelburg, there to take ship for 
Spain, Erasmus started for Louvain. 

He was thus destined to go to this university environ- 
ment, although it displeased him in so many respects. 
Where he would have academical duties. Where 
young latinists would follow him about to get their 
poems and letters corrected by him. Where all those 
divines, whom he distrusted, would watch him at close 
quarters. But it was only to be for a few months. “I 
have removed to Louvain,” he writes to the archbishop of 
Canterbury, “till I shall decide which residence is best 
suited to old age, which is already knocking at the gate 
importunately.” 

As it turned out, he was to spend four years (1517- 
1521) at Louvain. His life was now becoming more sta- 
tionary, but because of outward circumstances rather 
than of inward quiet. He kept deliberating all those 
years whether he should go to England, Germany or 
France, hoping at last to find the brilliant position which 
he had always coveted and never had been able or willing 
to grasp. 

The years 1516-1518 may be called the culmination of 
Erasmus’ career. Applauding crowds surrounded him 
more and more. The minds of men were seemingly pre- 
pared for something great to happen and they looked to 
Erasmus as the man! At Brussels he was continually 
bothered with visits from Spaniards, Italians and Ger- 
mans who wanted to boast of their interviews with him. 
The Spaniards, with their verbose solemnity, particularly 
bored him. Most exuberant of all were the eulogies with 
which the German humanists greeted him in their letters. 
This had begun already on his first journey to Basle in 


122 ERASMUS 


1514. “Great Rotterdamer,” “ornament of Germany,” 
“ornament of the world” were some of the simplest 
effusions. Town councils waited upon him, presents of 
wine, and public banquets were of common occurrence. 
No one expresses himself so hyperbolically as the jurist 
Ulrich Zasius of Freiburg. “I am pointed out in public,” 
he asserts, “as the man who has received a letter from 
Erasmus.” “Thrice greatest hero, you great Jove,” is a 
moderate apostrophe for him. “The Swiss,” Zwingli 
writes in 1516, “account it a great glory to have seen 
Erasmus.” “I know and I teach nothing but Erasmus 
now,” writes Wolfgang Capito. Ulrich von Hutten and 
Henry Glareanus both imagine themselves placed beside 
Erasmus, as Alcibiades stood beside Socrates. And 
Beatus Rhenanus devotes to him a life of earnest ad- 
miration and helpfulness that was to prove of much 
more value than these exuberant panegyrics. There 
is an element of national exaltation in this German 
enthusiasm for Erasmus: it is the violently stimulated 
mood into which Luther’s word will fall anon. 

The other nations also chimed in with praise, though 
a little later and a little more soberly. Colet and Tunstall 
promise him immortality, Etienne Poncher exalts him 
above the celebrated Italian humanists, Germain de Brie 
declares that French scholars have ceased reading any 
authors but Erasmus, and Budaeus announces that all 
Western Christendom resounds with his name. 

This increase of glory manifested itself in different 
ways. Almost every year the rumour of his death was 
spread abroad, malignantly, as he himself thinks. Again, 
all sorts of writings were ascribed to him, in which he 


A LIGHT OF THEOLOGY 123 


had no share whatever, amongst others the Epistolae 
obscurorum virorum. 

But, above all, his correspondence increased immensely. 
The time was long since past when he asked More to 
procure him more correspondents. Letters now kept 
pouring in to him, from all sides, beseeching him to reply. 
A former pupil laments with tears that he cannot show 
a single note written by Erasmus. Scholars respectfully 
sought an introduction from one of his friends, before 
venturing to address him. In this respect Erasmus was 
a man of heroic benevolence, and tried to answer what 
he could, although so overwhelmed by letters every day 
that he hardly found time to read them. “If I do not 
answer, I seem unkind,” says Erasmus, and that thought 
was intolerable. 

We should bear in mind that letter-writing, at that 
time, occupied more or less the place of the newspaper 
at present, or rather of the literary monthly, which 
arose fairly directly out of erudite correspondence. It 
was, as in antiquity, which in this respect was imitated 
better and more profitably, perhaps, than in any other 
sphere, an art. Even before 1500 Erasmus had, at Paris, 
described that art in the treatise, De conscribendis epi- 
stolis, which was to appear in print in 1522. People 
wrote, as a rule, with a view to later publication, for a 
wider circle, or at any rate, with the certainty that the 
recipient would show the letter to others. A fine Latin 
letter was a gem, which a man envied his neighbour. 
Erasmus writes to Budaeus: “Tunstall has devoured 
your letter to me and re-read it as many as three or 
four times; I had literally to tear it from his hands.” 

Unfortunately fate did not always take into considera- 


124 ERASMUS 


tion the author’s intentions as to publicity, semi-pub- 
licity or strict secrecy. Often letters passed through 
many hands before reaching their destination, as did 
Servatius’ letter to Erasmus in 1514. “Do be careful 
about letters,’ he writes more than once; “waylayers 
are on the lookout to intercept them.” Yet, with the 
curious precipitation that characterizes him, Erasmus 
was often very careless as to what he wrote. From 
an early age he preserved and cared for his letters, yet 
nevertheless, through his itinerant life, many were lost. 
He could not control their publication. As early as 1509 
a friend sent him a manuscript volume of his own (Eras- 
mus’) letters, that he had picked up for sale at Rome. 
Erasmus had it burnt at once. Since 1515 he himself 
superintended the publication of his letters; at first only 
a few important ones; afterwards in 1516 a selection of 
letters from friends to him, and after that ever larger 
collections till, at the end of his life, there appeared a 
new collection almost every year. No article was so 
much in demand on the book market as letters by Eras- 
mus, and no wonder. They were models of excellent 
style, tasteful Latin, witty expression and elegant 
erudition. 

The semi-private, semi-public character of the letters 
often made them compromising. What one could say 
to a friend in confidence might possibly injure when 
many read it. Erasmus, who never was aware how injuri- 
ously he expressed himself, repeatedly gave rise to mis- 
understanding and estrangement. Manners, so to say, 
had not yet adapted themselves to the new art of print- 
ing which increased the publicity of the written word a 
thousandfold. Only gradually under this new influence 


ERASMUS’ MIND 125 


was the separation effected between the public word, 
intended for the press, and the private communication 
which remains in writing and is read only by the 
recipient. 

Meanwhile, with the. growth of Erasmus’ fame, his 
earlier writings, too, had risen in the public estimation. 
The great success of the Enchiridion militis christian 
had begun about 1515, when the times were much riper 
for it than eleven years before. “The Moria is embraced 
as the highest wisdom,” writes John Watson to him in 
1516. In the same year we find a word used, for the 
first time, which expresses better than anything else 
how much Erasmus had become a centre of authority: 
Erasmiani. So his German friends called themselves, 
according to John Sapidus. More than a year later 
Dr. Johannes Eck employs the word still in a rather 
friendly sense, as a generally current term: “all scholars 
in Germany are Erasmians,” he says. But Erasmus did 
not like the word. “I find nothing in myself,” he replies, 
“why anyone should wish to be an Erasmicus, and, alto- 
gether, I hate those party names. We are all followers 
of Christ, and to his glory we all drudge, each for his 
part.” But he knows that now the question is: for or 
against him! From the brilliant Latinist and the man of 
wit of his prime he had become the international pivot 
on which the civilisation of his age hinged. He could 
not help beginning to feel himself the brain, the heart 
and the conscience of his times. It might even appear 
to him that he was called to speak the great redeeming 
word, or perhaps, that he had already spoken it. The 
faith in an easy triumph of pure knowledge and Christian 


126 ERASMUS 


meekness in a near future speaks from the preface of 
Erasmus’ edition of the New Testament. 

How clear did the future look in those years! In this 
period Erasmus repeatedly reverts to the glad motif of 
a golden age, which is on the point of dawning. Peren- 
nial peace is before the door. The highest princes of the 
world, Francis I of France, Charles, King of Spain; 
Henry VIII of England, and the emperor Maximilian 
have insured peace by the strongest ties. Uprightness 
and Christian piety will flourish together with the revival 
of letters and the sciences. As at a given signal the 
mightiest minds conspire to restore a high standard of 
culture. We may congratulate the age, it will be a 
golden one. 

But Erasmus does not sound this note long. It is 
heard for the last time in 1519; after which the dream 
of universal happiness about to dawn gives place to the 
usual complaint about the badness of the times, which 
may be found everywhere. 


XII 
ERASMUS’ MIND 


ERASMUS’ MIND: ETHICAL AND AESTHETIC TENDENCIES, 
AVERSION TO ALL THAT IS UNREASONABLE, SILLY AND 
CUMBROUS—HIS VISION OF ANTIQUITY PERVADED BY 
CHRISTIAN FAITH—RENASCENCE OF GOOD LEARNING— 
THE IDEAL LIFE OF SERENE HARMONY AND HAPPY 
WISDOM—LOVE OF THE DECOROUS AND SMOOTH—HIS 
MIND NEITHER PHILOSOPHIC NOR HISTORICAL, BUT 
STRONGLY PHILOLOGICAL AND MORALISTIC—FREEDOM, 
CLEARNESS, PURITY, SIMPLICITY—FAITH IN NATURE— 
EDUCATIONAL AND SOCIAL IDEAS. 

What made Erasmus the man from whom his 
contemporaries expected their salvation, on whose lips 
they hung to catch the word of deliverance? He seemed 
to them the bearer of a new liberty of the mind, a new 
clearness, purity and simplicity of knowledge, a new 
harmony of healthy and right living. He was to them 
as the possessor of newly discovered, untold wealth which 
he had only to distribute. 

What was there in the mind of the great Rotterdamer 
which promised so much to the world? 

The negative aspect of Erasmus’ mind may be defined 
as a heartfelt aversion to all that is unreasonable, insipid, 
purely formal, with which the undisturbed growth of 
medieval culture had overburdened and overcrowded the 
world of thought. As often as he thinks of the 
ridiculous textbooks out of which Latin was taught in 
his youth, disgust rises in his mind, and he execrates 
them—Mammetrectus, Brachylogus, Ebrardus and all the 
rest, as a heap of rubbish which ought to be cleared 


127 


128 ERASMUS 


away. But this aversion to the superannuated which 
had become useless and soulless, extended much further. 
He found society, and especially religious life, full of 
practices, ceremonies, traditions and conceptions, from 
which the spirit seemed to have departed. He does not 
reject them offhand and altogether: what revolts him 
is that they are so often performed without understanding 
and right feeling. But to his mind, highly susceptible 
to the foolish and ridiculous things, and with a delicate 
need of high decorum and inward dignity, all that sphere 
of ceremony and tradition displays itself as a useless, 
nay, a hurtful: scene of human stupidity and selfishness. 
And, intellectualist as he is, with his contempt for igno- 
rance, he seems unaware that those religious observances, 
after all, may contain valuable sentiments of unex- 
pressed and unformulated piety. 

Through his treatises, his letters, his Colloquies espe- 
cially, there always passes—as if one was looking at a 
gallery of Breughel’s pictures—a procession of ignorant 
and covetous monks who by their sanctimony and hum- 
bug impose upon the trustful multitude and fare sump- 
tuously themselves. As a fixed motif (such motifs are 
numerous with Erasmus) there always recurs his gibe 
about the superstition that a person was saved by dying 
in the gown of a Franciscan or a Dominican. 

Fasting, prescribed prayers, the observance of holy 
days should not be altogether neglected, but they become 
displeasing to God when we repose our trust in them 
and forget charity. The same holds good of confession, 
indulgence, all sorts of blessings. Pilgrimages are worth- 
less. The veneration of the Saints and of their relics 
is full of superstition and foolishness. The people think 


ERASMUS’ MIND 129 


they will be preserved from disasters during the day if 
only they have looked at the painted image of Saint 
Christopher in the morning. ‘We kiss the shoes of the 
saints and their dirty handkerchiefs and we leave their 
books, their most holy and efficacious relics, neglected.” 

Erasmus’ dislike of what seemed antiquated and worn- 
out in his days, went further still. It comprised the 
whole intelilectual scheme of medieval theology and 
philosophy. In the syllogistic system he found only 
subtlety and arid ingenuity. All symbolism and allegory 
were fundamentally alien to him and indifferent, though 
he occasionally tried his hand at an allegory; and he 
never was mystically inclined. | 

Now here it is just as much the deficiencies of his own 
mind as the qualities of the system which made him 
unable to appreciate it. While he struck at the abuse 
of ceremonies and of Church practices both with noble 
indignation and well-aimed mockery, a proud irony to 
which he was not fully entitled preponderates in his 
condemnation of scholastic theology which he could 
not quite understand. It was easy always to talk with 
a sneer of the conservative divines of his time as 
“magistri nostri.” 

His noble indignation hurt only those who deserved 
castigation and strengthened what was valuable, but his 
mockery hurt the good as well as the bad in spite of him, 
assailed both the institution and persons, and injured 
without elevating them. The individualist Erasmus 
never understood what it meant to offend the honour 
of an office, an order, or an establishment, especially 
when that institution is the most sacred of all, the Church 
itself, 


130 ERASMUS 


Erasmus’ conception of the Church was no longer 
purely Catholic. Of that glorious structure of medieval- 
Christian civilisation with its mystic foundation, its 
strict hierarchic construction, its splendidly fittmmg sym- 
metry he saw hardly anything but its load of outward 
details and ornament. Instead of the world which 
Thomas Aquinas and Dante had described, according to 
their vision, Erasmus saw another world, full of charm 
and elevated feeling, and this he held up before his 
compatriots. 

It was the world of Antiquity, but illuminated through- 
out by Christian faith. It was a world that had never 
existed as such. For with the historical reality which the 
times of Constantine and the great fathers of the Church © 
had manifested: that of declining Latinity and detericrat- 
ing Hellenism, the oncoming barbarism and the oncoming 
Byzantinism, it had nothing in common. Erasmus’ imag- 
ined world was an amalgamation of pure classicism (this 
meant for him, Cicero, Horace, Plutarch; for to the flour- 
ishing period of the Greek mind he remained after all a 
stranger) and pure, biblical Christianity. Could it be a 
union? Not really. In Erasmus’ mind the light falls, 
just as we saw in the history of his career, alternately 
on the pagan antique and on the Christian. But the 
warp of his mind is Christian; his classicism only serves 
him as a form, and from Antiquity he only chooses those 
elements which in ethical tendency are in conformity 
with his Christian ideal. 

And because of this, Erasmus, although he appeared 
after a century of earlier Humanism, is yet new to his 
time. The union of Antiquity and the Christian spirit 
which had haunted the mind of Petrarch, the father of 


ERASMUS’ MIND 131 


Humanism, which was lost sight of by his disciples, 
enchanted as they were by the irresistible brilliance of the 
the antique beauty of form,—was brought about by 
Erasmus. 

What pure Latinity and the classic spirit meant to 
Erasmus we cannot feel as he did because its realisation 
does not mean to us, as to him, a difficult conquest and 
a glorious triumph. To feel it thus one must have 
acquired in a hard school, the hatred of barbarism, which 
already during his first years of authorship had suggested 
the composition of the Antibarbari. The abusive term 
for all that is old and rude is already Gothic, Goths. The 
term barbarism as used by Erasmus comprised much 
of what we value most in the medieval spirit. 
Erasmus’ conception of the great intellectual crisis of his 
day was distinctly dualistic. He saw it as a struggle 
between old and new, which, to him, meant evil and good. 
In the advocates of tradition he saw only obscurantism, 
conservatism, and ignorant opposition to bonae literae, 
that is, the good cause for which he and his partisans 
battled. Of the rise of that higher culture Erasmus 
had already formed the conception which has since 
dominated the history of the Renaissance. It was a 
revival, begun two or three hundred years before his 
time, in which, besides literature, all the plastic arts 
shared. Side by side with the terms restitution and re- 
florescence the word renascence crops up repeatedly in 
his writings. ‘The world is coming to its senses as if 
awaking out of a deep sleep. Still there are some left 
who recalcitrate pertinaciously, clinging convulsively with 
hands and feet to their old ignorance. They fear that if 
bonae literae are reborn and the world grows wise, 


132 ERASMUS 


it will come to light that they have known nothing.” 
They do not know how pious the Ancients could be, 
what sanctity characterises Socrates, Virgil, and Horace, 
or Plutarch’s Moralia, how rich the history of Antiquity 
is in examples of forgiveness and true virtue. We 
should call nothing profane that is pious and conduces 
to good morals. No more dignified view of life was ever 
found than that which Cicero propounds in De Senectute. 

In order to understand Erasmus’ mind and the charm 
which it had for his contemporaries, one must begin with 
the ideal of life that was present before his inward eye 
as a splendid dream. It is not his own in particular. 
The whole Renaissance cherished that wish of reposeful, 
blithe, and yet serious intercourse of good and wise 
friends in the cool shade of a house under trees, where 
serenity and harmony would dwell. The age yearned 
for the realisation of simplicity, sincerity, truth and 
nature. Their imagination was always steeped in the 
essence of Antiquity, though, at heart, it is more 
nearly connected with medieval ideals than they them- 
selves were aware. In the circle of the Medici it is the 
idyll of Careggi, in Rabelais it embodies itself in the 
fancy of the abbey of Théléme; it finds voice in More’s 
Utopia and in the work of Montaigne. In Erasmus’ 
writings that ideal wish ever recurs in the shape of a 
friendly walk, followed by a meal in a garden-house. It 
is found as an opening scene of the Antibarbari, in the 
numerous descriptions of meals with Colet, and the nu- 
merous ‘“Convivia” of the Colloquies. Especially in the 
Convivium religiosum Erasmus has elaborately pictured 
his dream, and it would be worth while to compare 
it, on the one hand with Théléme, and on the other with 


ERASMUS’ MIND 133 


the fantastic design of a pleasure garden which Bernard 
Palissy describes. The little Dutch 18th century country 
seats and garden-houses in which the national spirit took 
great delight are the fulfilment of a purely Erasmian 
ideal. The host of the Convivium religiosum says: “To 
me a simple country-house, a nest, is pleasanter than 
any palace, and, if he be king who lives in freedom and 
according to his wishes, surely I am king here.” 

Life’s true joy is in virtue and piety. If they are Epi- 
cureans who live pleasantly, then none are more truly 
Epicureans than they who live in holiness and piety. 


The ideal joy of life is also perfectly idyllic in so- 


far that it requires an aloofness from earthly concerns — ‘! 


and contempt for all that is sordid. It is foolish to be 
interested in all that happens in the world; to pride 
oneself on one’s knowledge of the market, of the King of 
England’s plans, the news from Rome, conditions in Den- 
mark. The sensible old man of the Colloquium Senile 
has an easy post of honour, a safe mediocrity, he judges 
no one and nothing and smiles upon all the world. Quiet 
for oneself, surrounded by books—that is of all things 
most desirable. 

On the outskirts of this ideal of serenity and harmony 
numerous flowers of aesthetic value blow, such as Eras- 
mus’ sense of decorum, his great need of kindly courtesy, 
his pleasure in gentle and obliging treatment, in cultured 
and easy manners. Close by are some of his intellectual 
peculiarities. He hates the violent and extravagant. 
Therefore the choruses of the Greek drama displease 
him. The merit of his own poems he sees in the fact 
that they pass passion by, they abstain from pathos alto- 
gether,—“‘there is not a single storm in them, no moun- 


a 


134 ERASMUS 


tain torrent overflowing its banks, no exaggeration what- 
soever. There is great frugality in words. My poetry 
would rather keep within bounds than exceed them, 
rather hug the shore than cleave the high seas.” In 
another place he says: “I am always most pleased by a 
poem that does not differ too much from prose, but prose 
of the best sort, be it understood. As Philoxenus ac- 
counted those the most palatable fishes that are no true 
fishes and the most savoury meat what is no meat, the 
most pleasant voyage, that along the shores, and the 
most agreeable walk, that along the water’s edge; so 
I take especial pleasure in a rhetorical poem and a poet- 
ical oration, so that poetry is tasted in prose and the 
reverse.” That is the man of half-tones, of fine shadings, 
of the thought that is never completely expressed. But 
he adds: “Far-fetched conceits may please others; to me 
the chief concern seems to be that we draw our speech 
from the matter itself and apply ourselves less to showing 
off our invention than to present the thing.” That is the 
realist. 

From this conception results his admirable, simple 
clarity, the excellent division and presentation of his 
argument. But it also causes his lack of depth and the 
prolixity by which he is characterised. His machine runs 
too smoothly. In the endless apologies of his later years, 
ever new arguments occur to him; new passages to point, 
or quotations to support, his idea. He praises laconism, 
but never practises it. Erasmus never coins a sentence 
which, rounded off and pithy, becomes a proverb and in 
this manner lives. There are no current quotations from 
Erasmus. The collector of the Adagia has created no 
new ones of his own. 


ERASMUS’ MIND 135 


The true occupation for a mind like his was paraphras- 
ing, in which, indeed, he amply indulged. Soothing down 
and unfolding was just the work he liked. It is charac- 
teristic that he paraphrased the whole New Testament 
except the Apocalypse. | 

Erasmus’ mind was neither philosophic nor historic. 
His was neither the work of exact, logical discrimination, 
nor of grasping the deep sense of the way of the world 
in broad historical visions in which the particulars them- 
selves, in their multiplicity and variegation, form the 
image. His mind is philological in the fullest sense of the 
word. But by that alone he would not have conquered 
and captivated the world. His mind was at the same 
time of a deeply ethical and rather strong aesthetic trend 
and those three together have made him great. 

The foundation of Erasmus’ mind is his fervent desire 
of freedom, clearness, purity, simplicity and rest. It is 
an old ideal of life to which he gave new substance by 
the wealth of his mind. Without liberty, life is no life; 
and there is no liberty without repose. The fact that 
he never took sides definitely resulted from an urgent 
need of perfect independence. Each engagement, even 
a temporary one, was felt as a fetter by Erasmus. An 
interlocutor in the Colloquies in which he so often, spon- 
taneously, reveals his own ideals of life, declares himself 
determined neither to marzy, nor to take holy orders, nor 
to enter a monastery, nor into any connection, from which 
he will afterwards be unable to free himself—at least not 
before he knows himself completely. “When will that be? 


never, perhaps.” “On no other account do I congratu- > 


late myself more than on the fact that I have never 


136 ERASMUS 


attached myself to any party,’ Erasmus says towards 
the end of his life. 

Liberty should be spiritual liberty in the first place. 
“But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself 
is judged of no man,” is the word of Saint Paul. To 
what purpose should he require prescriptions who, of his 
own accord, does better things than human laws require? 
What arrogance it is to bind by institutions a man who 
is clearly led by the inspirations of the divine spirit? 

In Erasmus we already find the beginning of that op- 
timism which judges upright man good enough to dis- 
pense with fixed forms and rules. As More, in Utopia, 
and Rabelais, Erasmus relies already on the dictates of 
nature, which produces man as inclined to good and 
which we may follow, provided we are imbued with faith 
and piety. 

In this line of confidence in what is natural and desire 
of the simple and reasonable, Erasmus’ educational and 
social ideas lie. Here he is far ahead of his times. It 
would be an attractive undertaking to discuss Eras- 
mus’ educational ideals more fully. They foreshadow 
exactly those of the eighteenth century. The child should 
learn in playing, by means of things that are agreeable 
to its mind, from pictures. Its faults should be gently 
corrected. The flogging and abusive schoolmaster is 
Erasmus’ abomination; the office itself is holy and vener- 
able to him. Education should begin forthwith from the 
moment of birth. Probably Erasmus attached too much 
value to classicism, here as elsewhere: his friend Peter 
Gilles should implant the rudiments of the ancient Jan- 
guages in his two-year-old son, that he may greet his 


ERASMUS’ MIND 137 


father with endearing stammerings in Greek and Latin. 
But what gentleness and clear good sense shines from all 
Erasmus says about instruction and education! 

The same holds good of his views about marriage and 
woman. In the problem of sexual relations he distinctly 
sides with the woman from deep conviction. There is a 
great deal of tenderness and delicate feeling in his con- 
ception of the position of the girl and the woman. Few 
characters of the Colloquies have been drawn with s0 
much sympathy as the girl with the lover and the cul- 
tured woman in the witty conversation with the abbot. 
Erasmus’ ideal of marriage is truly social and hygienic. 
Let us beget children for the State and for Christ, says 
the lover, children endowed by their upright parents 
with a good disposition and who see the good example 
at home which is to guide them. Again and again he 
reverts to the mother’s duty to suckle the child herself. 
He indicates how the house should be arranged, in a 
simple and cleanly manner; he occupies himself with the 
problem of useful children’s dress. Who stood up, as he 
did, at that time for the fallen girl, and for the prostitute 
compelled by necessity? Who saw so clearly the social 
danger of marriages of persons infected with the new 
scourge of Europe, so violently abhorred by Erasmus? 
He would wish that such a marriage should at once be 
declared null and void by the Pope. Erasmus does not 
hold with the easy social theory, still quite current in 
the literature of his time, which upon women casts all 
the blame of adultery and lewdness. With the savages 
who live in a state of nature, he says, the adultery of 
men is punished, but that of women is forgiven. 


138 ERASMUS 


Here it appears, at the same time, that Erasmus knew, 
be it half in jest, the conception of natural virtue and 
happiness of naked islanders in a savage state. It soon 
crops up again in Montaigne and the following centuries 
develop it into a literary dogma. 


XIII 
ERAMUS’ MIND (Continued) 


ERASMUS’ MIND: INTELLECTUAL TENDENCIES—THE 
WORLD ENCUMBERED BY BELIEFS AND FORMS—TRUTH 
MUST BE SIMPLE—BACK TO THE PURE SOURCES—HOLY 
SCRIPTURE IN THE ORIGINAL LANGUAGES—BIBLICAL 
HUMANISM—CRITICAL WORK ON THE TEXTS OF SCRIP- 
TURE—PRACTICE BETTER THAN DOGMA—ERASMUS’ 
TALENT AND WIT—DELIGHT IN WORDS AND THINGS— 
PROLIXITY—OBSERVATION OF DETAILS—A VEILED REAL- 
ISM—AMBIGUOUSNESS—THE “NUANCE”’—INSCRUTABILITY 
OF THE ULTIMATE GROUND OF ALL THINGS. 
Simplicity, naturalness, purity, and reasonableness, 

those to Erasmus are the dominant requirements, also 

when we pass from his ethical and aesthetic concepts to 
his intellectual point of view; indeed, the two can hardly 
be kept apart. 

The world, says Erasmus, is overloaded with human 
constitutions, and opinions and scholastic dogmas, and 
overburdened with the tyrannical authority of orders, 
and because of all this the strength of gospel doctrine 
is flagging. Faith requires simplification, he argued. 
What would the Turks say of our scholasticism? Colet 
wrote to him one day: “There is no end to books and 
science. Let us, therefore, leave all roundabout roads 
and go by a short cut to the truth.” 

Truth must be simple. “The language of truth is 
simple, says Seneca; well then, nothing is simpler nor 
truer than Christ.” “TI should wish,’ Erasmus says else- 
where, “that this simple and pure Christ might be deeply 
impressed upon the mind of men, and that I deem best 


139 


140 ERASMUS 


attainable in this way, that we, supported by our knowl- 
edge of the original languages, should philosophis? at the 
sources themselves.” 

Here a new watchword comes to the fore: back to the 
sources! It is not merely an intellectual, philological 
requirement; it is equally an ethical and aesthetic neces- 
sity of life. The original and pure, all that is not yet 
overgrown or has not passed through many hands, has 
such a potent charm. Erasmus compared it to an apple 
which we ourselves pick off the tree. To recall the world 
to the ancient simplicity of science, to lead it back from 
the now turbid pools to those living and most pure 
fountain heads, those most limpid sources of gospel doc- 
trine,—thus he saw the task of divinity. The metaphor 
of the limpid water is not without meaning here; it re- 
veals the psychologic quality of Erasmus’ fervent prin- 
ciple. 

“How is it,” he exclaims, “that people give themselves 
so much trouble about the details of all sorts of remote 
philosophical systems and neglect to go to the sources 
of Christianity itself?” “Although this wisdom, which 
is so excellent that once for all it put the wisdom of all 
the world to shame, may be drawn from these few books, 
as from a crystalline source, with far less trouble than 
is the wisdom of Aristotle from so many thorny books 
and with much more fruit. . . . The equipment for 
that journey is simple and at everyone’s immediate dis- 
posal. This philosophy is accessible for everybody. Christ 
desires that his mysteries shall be spread as widely as 
possible. I should wish that all good wives read the 
Gospel and Paul’s Epistles; that they were translated 
into all languages; that out of these the husbandman 


ERASMUS’ MIND 141 


sang while ploughing, the weaver at his loom; that with 
such stories the traveller should beguile his wayfaring. 

. . This sort of philosophy is rather a matter of 
disposition than of syllogisms, rather of life than of 
disputation, rather of inspiration than of erudition, 
rather of transformation than of logic. . . . What is the 
philosophy of Christ, which he himself calls Renascentta, 
but the insaturation of Nature created good ?—moreover, 
though no one has taught us this so absolutely and 
effectively as Christ, yet also in pagan books much may 
be found that is in accordance with it.” 

Such was the view of life of this biblical humanist. As 
often as Erasmus reverts to these matters, his voice 
sounds clearest. “Let no one,” he says in the preface to 
the notes to the New Testament, “take up this work, as 
he takes up Gellius’ Noctes atticae or Poliziano’s Mis- 
cellanies . . . We are in the presence of holy things; 
here it is no question of eloquence, these matters are best 
recommended to the world by simplicity and purity; it 
would be ridiculous to display human erudition here, 
impious to pride oneself on human eloquence.” But 
Erasmus never was so eloquent himself as just then. 

What here raises him above his usual level of force 
and fervour is the fact that he fights a battle, the 
battle for the right of biblical criticism. It revolts him 
that people should study Holy Scripture in the Vulgate 
when they know that the texts show differences and are 
corrupt, although we have the Greek text by which to 
go back to the original form and primary meaning. 

He is now reproached because he dares, as a mere 
grammarian, to assail the text of Holy Scripture, on the 
score of futile mistakes or irregularities. “Details they 


142 ERASMUS 


are, yes, but because of these details we sometimes see 
even great divines stumble and rave.” Philological tri- 
fling is necessary. “Why are we so precise as to our food, 
our clothes, our money-matters and why does this accu- 
racy displease us in divine literature alone? He crawls 
along the ground, they say, he wearies himself out about 
words and syllables! Why do we slight any word of 
Him whom we venerate and worship under the name 
of the Word? But, be it so! Let whoever wishes 
imagine that I have not been able to achieve anything 
better, and out of sluggishness of mind and coldness of 
heart, or lack of erudition have taken this lowest task 
upon myself; it is still a Christian idea to think all work 
good that is done with pious zeal. We bring along the 
bricks, but to build the temple of God.” 

He does not want to be intractable. Let the Vulgate 
be kept for use in the liturgy, for sermon, in schools, 
but he who, at home, reads our edition, will understand 
his own the better in consequence. He, Erasmus, is pre- 
pared to render account and acknowledge himself to have 
been wrong when convicted of error. 

Erasmus perhaps never quite realised how much his 
philological-critical method must shake the foundations 
of the Church. He was surprised at his adversaries 
“who could not but believe that all their authority 
would perish at once when the sacred books might be 
read in a purified form, and when people tried to under- 
stand them in the original.” He did not feel what the 
unassailable authority of a sacred book meant. He re- 
joices because Holy Scripture is approached so much more 
closely, because all sorts of shadings are brought to light 
by considering not only what is said but also by whom, 


ERASMUS’ MIND 143 


for whom, at what time, on what occasion, what pre- 
cedes and what follows, in short, by the method of his- 
torical philological criticism. To him it seemed so espe- 
cially pious when reading Scripture and coming across 
a place which seemed contrary to the doctrine of Christ 
or the divinity of his nature, to believe rather that one 
did not understand the phrase or that the text might be 
corrupt. Unperceived he passed from emendation of the 
different versions to the correction of the contents. The 
epistles were not all written by the apostles to whom 
they are attributed. The apostles themselves made mis- 
takes, at times. 

The foundation of his spiritual life was no longer a 
unity to Erasmus. It was, on the one hand, a strong 
desire of an upright, simple, pure and homely belief, the 
earnest wish to be a good Christian. But it was also the 
irresistible intellectual and aesthetical need of the good 
taste, the harmony, the clear and exact expression of the 
Ancients, the dislike of what was cumbrous and involved. 
Erasmus thought that good learning might render good 
service for the necessary purification of the faith and its 
forms. The measure of church hymns should be cor- 
rected. That Christian expression and classicism were 
incompatible, he never believed. The man who in the 
sphere of sacred studies asked every author for his cre- 
dentials, remained unconscious of the fact that he 
acknowledged the authority of the Ancients, without any 
evidence. How naively he appeals to Antiquity, again 
and again, to justify some bold feat! He is critical, 
they say? Were not the Ancients critical? He permits 
himself to insert digressions? So did the Ancients, etc. 

Erasmus is in profound sympathy with that revered 


144 ERASMUS 


Antiquity by his fundamental conviction that it is the 
practice of life which matters. He is the great philoso- 
pher—not who knows the tenets of the Stoics or Peri- 
patetics by rote—but who expresses the meaning of phil- 
osophy by his life and his morals, for that is its purpose. 
He is truly a divine who teaches, not by artful syllogisms, 
but by his disposition, by his face and his eyes, by his 
life itself, that wealth should be despised. To live up to 
that standard is what Christ himself calls Renascentia. 
Erasmus uses the word in the Christian sense only. But 
in that sense it is closely allied to the idea of the Renais- 
sance as a historical phenomenon. The worldly and 
pagan sides of the Renaissance have nearly always been 
overrated. Erasmus is, much more than Aretino or Cas- 
tiglione, the representative of the spirit of his age, one 
over whose Christian sentiment the sweet gale of An- 
tiquity had passed. And in that very union of strong 
Christian endeavour and the spirit of Antiquity, is the 
explanation of Erasmus’ wonderful success. 


The mere intention and the contents of the mind do 
not influence the world, if the form of expression does 
not co-operate. In Erasmus the quality of his talent 
is a very important factor. His perfect clearness and 
ease of expression, his liveliness, wit, imagination, gusto 
and humour have lent a charm to all he wrote which to 
his contemporaries was irresistible and captivates even 
us, as soon as we read him. In all that constitutes his 
talent, Erasmus is perfectly and altogether a representa- 
tive of the Renaissance. There is, in the first place, his 
eternal & propos. What he writes is never vague, never 
dark,—it is always plausible. Everything seemingly 


ERASMUS’ MIND 145 


flows of itself like a fountain. It always rings true as to 
tone, turn of phrase and accent. It has almost the light 
harmony of Ariosto. And it is, like Ariosto, never tragic, 
never truly heroic. It carries us away, indeed, but it is 
never itself truly enraptured. 

The more artistic aspects of Erasmus’ talent come out 
most clearly—though they are everywhere in evidence— 
in those two recreations after more serious labour, the 
More Encomium and the Colloquia. But just those 
two have been of enormous importance for his influence 
upon his times. For while Jerome reached tens of readers 
and the New Testament hundreds, the Moria and Collo- 
quies went out to thousands. And their importance is 
heightened in that Erasmus has nowhere else expressed 
himself so spontaneously. 

In each of the Colloquies, even in the first purely for- 
mulary ones, there is the sketch for a comedy, a novel- 
ette or a satire. There is hardly a sentence without its 
“point,” an expression without a vivid fancy. There are 
unrivalled niceties. The abbot of the Abbatis et eruditae 
colloquium is a Moliére character. It should be noticed 
how well Erasmus always sustains his characters and his 
scenes, because he sees them. In The woman in childbed 
he never forgets for a moment that Eutrapelus is an 
artist. At the end of The game of knuckle-bones, when 
the interlocutors, after having elucidated the whole no- 
menclature of the Latin game of knuckle-bones, are going 
to play themselves, Carolus says: “but shut the door 
first, lest the cook should see us playing like two boys.” 

As Holbein illustrated the Moria, we should wish to 
possess the Colloquia with illustrations by Breughel, so 
closely allied is Erasmus’ witty clear vision of incidents to 


146 ERASMUS 


that of this great master. The procession of drunkards 
on Palm Sunday, the saving of the shipwrecked crew, the 
old men waiting for the travelling cart while the drivers 
are still drinking, all these are Dutch genre pieces of the 
best sort. 

We like to speak of the realism of the Renaissance. 
Erasmus is certainly a realist in the sense of having an 
insatiable hunger for knowledge of the tangible world. 
He wants to know things and their names: the par- 
ticulars of each thing, be it never so remote, such as 
those terms of games and rules of games of the Romans. 
Read carefully the description of the decorative painting 
on the garden-house of the Convivium religiosum: it is 
nothing but an object lesson, a graphic representation of 
the forms of reality. 

In its joy about the material universe and the supple, 
pliant word, the Renaissance revels in a profusion of 
imagery and expressions. The resounding enumerations 
of names and things, which Rabelais always gives, are not 
unknown, too, to Erasmus, but he uses them for intel- 
lectual and useful purposes. In de Copia verborum ac 
rerum one feat of varied power of expression succeeds 
another—he gives fifty ways of saying: “Your letter has 
given me much pleasure,” or: “I think that it is going 
to rain.” The aesthetic impulse is here that of a theme 
and variations: to display all the wealth and muta- 
tions of the logic of language. Elsewhere, too, Erasmus 
indulges this proclivity for accumulating the treasures 
of his genius; he and his contemporaries can never re- 
strain themselves from giving all the instances instead 
of one: in Ratio verae theologiae, in de Pronuntiatione, 
in Lingua, in Ecclesiastes. The collections of the Adagia, 


ERASMUS’ MIND 147 


Parabolae, and of the Apophthegmata are altogether 
based on this eagerness of the Renaissance (which, by 
the way, was an inheritance of the Middle Ages them- 
selves) to luxuriate in the wealth of the tangible world, 
to revel in words and things. 

The senses are open for the nice observation of the 
curious. Though Erasmus does not know that need of 
probing the secrets of nature, which inspired a Leonardo 
da Vinci, a Paracelsus, a Vesalius, he is also, by his keen 
observation, a child of his time. For the significance 
in the habits and customs of nations he has an open eye. 
He notices the gait of Swiss soldiers, how dandies sit, 
how Picards pronounce French. He notices that in old 
pictures the sitters are always represented with half- 
closed eyes and tightly shut lips, as signs of modesty, 
and how some Spaniards still honour this expression in 
life, whereas German art prefers lips pouting as for a 
kiss. His lively sense of anecdote, to which he gives the 
rein in all his writings, belongs here. 

And, in spite of all his realism, the world which Eras- 
mus sees and renders, is not altogether that of the six- 
teenth century. Iiverything is veiled by Latin. Between 
the author’s mind and reality intervenes his antique 
diction. At bottom the world of his mind is imaginary. 
It is a subdued and limited sixteenth-century reality 
which he reflects. Together with its coarseness he lacks 
all that is violent and direct in his times. Compared 
with the artists, with Luther and Calvin, with the states- 
men, the navigators, the soldiers and the scientists, Eras- 
mus confronts the world as a recluse. It is only the 
influence of Latin. In spite of all his receptiveness and 


148 ERASMUS 


sensitiveness, Erasmus is never fully in contact with life. 
All through his work not a bird sings or a wind rustles. 

But that reserve or fear of directness is not merely a 
negative quality. It also results from a consciousness of 
the indefiniteness of the ground of all things, from the 
awe of the ambiguity of all that is. If Erasmus so often 
hovers over the borderline between earnestness and mock- 
ery, if he hardly ever gives an incisive conclusion, it is 
not only due to cautiousness, and fear to commit himself. 
Everywhere he sees the shadings, the blending of the 
meaning of words. The terms of things are no longer 
to him, as to the man of the Middle Ages, as crystals 
mounted in gold, or as stars in the firmament. “I like 
assertions so little that I would easily take sides with 
the Sceptics wherever it is allowed by the inviolable 
authority of Holy Scripture and the decrees of the 
Church.” “What is exempt from error?” All subtle 
contentions of theological speculation arise from a dan- 
gerous curiosity and lead to impious audacity. What 
have all the great controversies about the Trinity and 
the Virgin Mary profited? “We have defined so much 
that without danger to our salvation might have re- 
mained unknown or undecided... . The essentials 
of our religion are peace and unanimity. These can 
hardly exist unless we make definitions about as few 
points as possible and leave many questions to indi- 
vidual judgment. Numerous problems are now post- 
poned till the cecumenical council. It would be much 
better to put off such questions till the time when the 
glass shall be removed and the darkness cleared away, 
and we shall see God face to face.” 

“There are sanctuaries in the sacred studies which God 


THE HUMANIST 149 


has not willed that we should probe, and if we try to 
penetrate there, we grope in ever deeper darkness the 
farther we proceed, so that we recognise, in this manner, 
too, the inscrutable majesty of divine wisdom and the 
imbecility of human understanding.” 


XIV 
ERASMUS’ CHARACTER 


ERASMUS’ CHARACTER: NEED OF PURITY AND CLEANLI- 
NESS—DELICACY—DISLIKE OF CONTENTION, NEED OF 
CONCORD AND FRIENDSHIP—AVERSION TO DISTURB- 
ANCE OF EVERY KIND—TOO MUCH CONCERNED ABOUT 
OTHER MEN’S OPINION—NEED OF SELF-JUSTIFICATION 
—HIMSELF NEVER IN THE WRONG—CORRELATION BE- 
TWEEN INCLINATIONS AND CONVICTIONS—IDEAL IMAGE 
OF HIMSELF—DISSATISFACTION WITH HIMSELF—SELF- 
CENTREDNESS—A SOLITARY AT HEART—FASTIDIOUSNESS 
—SUSPICIOUSNESS—MORBID MISTRUST—UNHAPPINESS— 
RESTLESSNESS—UNSOLVED CONTRADICTIONS OF HIS 
BEING—HORROR OF LIES—RESERVE AND INSINUATION, 


Erasmus’ powerful mind met with a great response 
in the heart of his contemporaries and had a lasting 
influence on the march of civilisation. But one of the 
heroes of history he cannot be called. Was not his 
failure to attain to still loftier heights partly due to the 
fact that his character was not on a level with the ele- 
vation of his mind? 

And yet that character, a very complicated one, though 
he took himself to be the simplest man in the world, was 
determined by the same factors which determined the 
structure of his mind. Again and again we find in his 
inclinations the correlates of his convictions. 

At the root of his moral being we find—a key for the 
understanding of his character—that same profound need 
of purity which drove him to the sources of sacred 
science. Purity in the material and the moral sense is 

150 


ERASMUS’ CHARACTER 151 


what he desires for himself and others, always and in all 
things. Few things revolt him so much as the practices 
of vintners who doctor wine and dealers who adulterate 
food. If he continually chastens his language and style, 
or exculpates himself from mistakes, it is the same 
impulse which prompts his passionate desire for cleanli- 
ness and brightness, of the home and of the body. He 
has a violent dislike of stuffy air and smelly substances. 
He regularly takes a roundabout way to avoid a malo- 
dorous lane; he loathes shambles and fishmongers’ shops. 
Fetors spread infection, he thinks. Erasmus had, earlier 
than most people, antiseptic ideas about the danger of 
infection in the foul air of crowded inns, in the breath 
of confessants, in baptismal water. Throw aside com- 
mon cups, he pleaded; let everybody shave himself, 
let us be cleanly as to bed-sheets, let us not kiss each 
other by way of greeting. The fear of the horrible 
venereal disease, imported into Europe during his life- 
time, and of which Erasmus watched the unbridled prop- 
agation with solicitude, increases his desire for purity. 
Too little is being done to stop it, he thinks. He cautions 
his men against suspected inns; he wants to have mea- 
sures taken against the marriages of syphilitic persons. 
In his undignified attitude towards Hutten his physical 
and moral aversion to the man’s evil plays an unmistak- 
able part. 

Erasmus is a delicate soul in all his fibres. His body 
forces him to be that. He is highly sensitive, among 
other things very susceptible to cold, “the scholars’ dis- 
order,” as he calls it. Early in life already the painful 
malady of the stone begins to torment him, which he 
resisted so bravely, when his work was at stake. He 


152 ERASMUS 


always speaks in a coddling tone about his little body, 
which cannot stand fasting, which must be kept fit by 
some exercise, namely riding, and for which he carefully 
tries to select a suitable climate. He is at times circum- 
stantial in the description of his ailments. He has to 
be very careful in the matter of his sleep; if once he 
wakes up, he finds it difficult to go to sleep again, and 
because of that has often to lose the morning, the best 
time to work and which is so dear to him. He cannot 
stand cold, wind and fog, but still less overheated rooms. 
How he has execrated the German stoves, which are 
burned nearly all the year through and made Germany 
almost unbearable to him! Of his fear of illness we 
have spoken above. It is not only the plague which he 
flees—for fear of catching cold he gives up a journey 
from Louvain to Antwerp where his friend Peter Gilles 
is m mourning. Although he realises quite well that, 
“often a great deal of the disease is in the imagination,” 
yet his own imagination leaves him no peace. Never- 
theless, when he is seriously ill he does not fear death. 

His hygienics amount to temperance, cleanliness and 
fresh air, this last item in moderation: he takes the 
vicinity of the sea to be unwholesome and is afraid of 
draughts. His friend Gilles, who is ill, he advises: “do 
not take too much medicine, keep quiet and do not get 
angry.” ‘Though there is a Praise of Medicine among 
his works, he does not think highly of physicians and 
satirises them more than once in the Colloquies. 

Also in his outward appearance there were certain 
features betraying his delicacy. He was of medium 
height, well-made, of a fair complexion with blond hair 


ERASMUS’ CHARACTER 153 


and blue eyes, a cheerful face, a very articulate mode of 
speech, but a thin voice. 

In the moral sphere Erasmus’ delicacy is represented 
by his great need of friendship and concord, his dislike 
of contention. With him peace and harmony rank above 
all other considerations, and he confesses them to be the 
guiding principles of his actions. He would, if it might 
be, have all the world as a friend. “Wittingly I dis- 
charge no one from my friendship,” he says. And though 
he was sometimes capricious and exacting towards his 
friends, yet a truly great friend he was: witness the 
many who never forsook him, or whom he, after a tem- 
porary estrangement, always won back—More, Peter 
Gilles, Fisher, Ammonious, Budaeus, and others too nu- 
merous to mention. ‘He was most constant in keeping 
up friendships,” says Beatus Rhenanus, whose own at- 
tachment to Erasmus is a proof of the strong affection 
he could inspire. | 

At the root of this desire of friendship lies a great and 
sincere need of affection. Remember the effusions of 
almost feminine affection towards Servatius during his 
monastic period. But at the same time it is a sort 
of moral serenity that makes him so: an aversion to 
disturbance, to whatever is harsh and inharmonious. He 
calls it “a certain occult natural sense” which makes him 
abhor strife. He cannot abide being at loggerheads with 
anyone. He always hoped and wanted, he says, to keep 
his pen unbloody, to attack no one, to provoke no one, 
even if he were attacked. But his enemies had not willed 
it, and in later years he became well accustomed to bitter 
polemics, with Lefévre d’Etaples, with Lee, with Ezmon- 
danus, with Hutten, with Luther, with Beda, with the 


154 ERASMUS 


Spaniards, and the Italians. At first it is still noticeable 
how he suffers by it, how contention wounds him, so 
that he cannot bear the pain in silence. “Do let us be 
iriends again,’ he begs Lefévre, who does not reply. 
The time which he had to devote to his polemics he 
regards as lost. “I feel myself getting more heavy every 
day,” he writes in 1520, ‘not so much on account of my 
age as because of the restless labour of my studies, nay 
more even by the weariness of disputes than by the 
work, which, in itself, is agreeable.’ And how much 
strife was still in store for him then! 

/ If only Erasmus had been less concerned about public 
/ opinion! But that seemed impossible: he had a fear of 
men, or, we may call it, a fervent need of justification. 
He would always see beforehand and usually in exag- 
gerated colours the effect his word or deed would have 
upon men. Of himself it was certainly true as he once 
wrote: that the craving for fame has less sharp spurs 
than the fear of ignominy. Erasmus is with Rousseau 
among those who cannot bear the consciousness of guilt, 
out of a sort of mental cleanliness. Not to be able to 
repay a benefit with interest, makes him ashamed and 
sad. He cannot abide “dunning creditors, unperformed 
duty, neglect of the need of a friend.” If he cannot dis- 
charge the obligation himself, he explains it away. The 
Dutch historian Fruin has quite correctly observed: 
“Whatever Erasmus did contrary to his duty and his 
rightly-understood interests was the fault of circumstances 
or wrong advice; he is never to blame himself.” And 
what he has thus justified for himself becomes with him 
universal law: “God relieves people of pernicious vows, 


ERASMUS’ CHARACTER 155 


if only they repent of them,” says the man who himself 
had broken a vow. 

There is in Erasmus a dangerous fusion between in- 
clination and conviction. The correlations between his 
idiosyncrasies and his precepts are undeniable. This has 
special reference to his point of view in the matter of 
fasting and abstinence from meat. He too frequently 
vents his own aversion to fish, or talks of his inability 
to postpone meals, not to make this connection clear to 
everybody. In the same way his personal experience in 
the monastery passes into his disapproval, on principle, 
of monastic life. 

The distortion of the image of his youth in his memory, 
to which we have referred, is based on that need of self- 
justification. It is all unconscious interpretation of the 
undeniable facts to suit the ideal which Erasmus had 
made of himself and to which he honestly thinks he 
answers. The chief features of that self-conceived pic- 
ture are a remarkable, simple sincerity and frankness, 
which make it impossible to him to dissemble; inex- 
perience and carelessness in the ordinary concerns of life 
and a total lack of ambition. All this is true in the first 
instance: there is a superficial Erasmus who answers to 
that image, but it is not the whole Erasmus; there is a 
deeper one who is almost the opposite and whom himself 
does not know because he will not know him. Possibly 
because behind this there is a still deeper being, which 
is truly good. 

Does he not ascribe weaknesses to himself? Certainly. 
He is, in spite of his self-coddling, ever dissatisfied with 
himself and his work. “Putidulus,” he calls himself, 
meaning the quality of never being content with himself, 


156 ERASMUS 


It is that peculiarity which makes him dissatisfied with 
any work of his directly after it has appeared, so that 
he always keeps revising and supplementing. “Pusillani- 
mous,” he calls himself in writing to Colet. But again 
he cannot help giving himself credit for acknowledging 
that quality, nay, converting that quality itself into a 
virtue: it is modesty, the opposite of boasting and self- 
love. 

This bashfulness about himself is the reason that he 
does not love his own physiognomy, and is only per- 
suaded with difficulty by his friends to sit for a portrait. 
His own appearance is not heroic or dignified enough for 
him, and he is not duped by an artist who flatters him: 
“Heigh-ho,” he exclaims, on seeing Holbein’s thumbnail 
sketch illustrating the Moria: “if Erasmus still looked 
like that, he would take a wife at once.” It is that deep 
trait of dissatisfaction that suggests the inscription on 
his portraits: “his writings will show you a better image.” 

Erasmus’ modesty and the contempt which he dis- 
plays of the fame that fell to his lot are of a somewhat 
rhetorical character. But in this we should not so much 
see a personal trait of Erasmus as a general form, com- 
mon to all humanists. On the other hand, this mood 
cannot be called altogether artificial. His books, which 
he calls his children, have not turned out well. He does 
not think they will live. He does not set store by his 
letters: he publishes them because his friends insist 
upon it. He writes his poems to try a new pen. He 
hopes that geniuses will soon appear who will eclipse him, 
so that Erasmus will pass for a stammerer. What is 
fame? A pagan survival. He is fed up with it to reple- 
tion and would do nothing more gladly than cast it off. 


ERASMUS’ CHARACTER 157 


Sometimes another note escapes him. If Lee would 
help him in his endeavours, Erasmus would make him 
immortal, he had told the former in their first con- 
versation. And he threatens an unknown adversary. 
“If you go on, so impudently to assail my good name, 
then take care that my gentleness does not give way and 
I cause you to be ranked, after a thousand years, among 
the venomous sycophants, among the idle boasters, among 
the incompetent physicians.” 

The self-centred element in Erasmus must needs in- 
crease accordingly as he in truth became a centre and 
objective point of ideas and culture. There really was a 
time when it must seem to him that the world hinged 
upon him, and that it awaited the redeeming word from 
him. What a widespread enthusiastic following he had, 
how many warm friends and venerators! There is 
something naive in the way in which he thinks it requi- 
site to treat all his friends, in an open letter, to a 
detailed, rather repellent account of an illness that 
attacked him on the way back from Basle to Louvain. 
His part, his position, his name, this more and more 
becomes the aspect under which he sees world-events. 
Years will come in which his whole enormous corre- 
spondence is little more than one protracted self-defence. 

Yet this man who has so many friends is nevertheless 
solitary at heart. And in the depth of that heart he 
desires to be alone. He is of a most retiring disposition; 
he is a recluse. “TI have always wished to be alone, and 
there is nothing I hate so much as sworn partisans.” 
Erasmus is one of those whom contact with others 
weakens. The less he has to address and to consider 
others, friends or enemies, the more truly he utters his 


158 ERASMUS 


deepest soul. Intercourse with particular people always 
causes little scruples in him, intentional amenities, 
coquetry, reticences, reserves, spiteful hits, evasions. 
Therefore it should not be thought that we get to know 
him to the core from his letters. Natures like his, which 
all contact with men unsettles, give their best and 
deepest when they speak impersonally and to all. 

After the early effusions of sentimental affection he 
no longer opens his heart unreservedly to others. At 
bottom he feels separated from all and on the alert 
towards all. There is a great fear in him that others will 
touch his soul or disturb the image he has made of 
himself. The attitude of warding off reveals itself as 
fastidiousness and as bashfulness. Budaeus hit the mark 
when he exclaimed jocularly: “Fastidiosule! You little 
fastidious person!” Erasmus himself interprets the 
dominating trait of his being as maidenly coyness. The 
excessive sensitiveness to the stain attaching to his birth 
results from it. But his friend Ammonius speaks of his 
“subrustica verecundia,” his somewhat rustic gaucherie. 
There is, indeed, often something of the small man about 
Hrasmus, who is hampered by greatness and therefore 
shuns the great, because, at bottom, they obsess him and 
he feels them to be inimical to his being. 

It seems a hard thing to say that genuine loyalty and 
fervent gratefulness were strange to Erasmus. And yet 
such was his nature. In characters like his a kind of 
mental cramp keeps back the effusions of the heart. He 
subscribes to the adage: “Love so, as if you may hate 
one day, and hate so, as if you may love one day.” He 
cannot bear benefits. In his inmost soul he continually 
retires before everybody. He who considers himself the 


ERASMUS’ CHARACTER 159 


pattern of simple unsuspicion, is indeed in the highest 
degree suspicious towards all his friends. The dead 
Ammonius, who had helped him so zealously in the 
most delicate concerns, is not secure from it. “You are 
always unfairly distrustful towards me,” Budaeus com- 
plains. “What!” exclaims Erasmus, “you will find few 
people who are so little distrustful in friendship as 
myself.” 

When at the height of his fame the attention of the 
world was indeed fixed on all he spoke or did, there was 
some ground for a certain feeling on his part of being 
always watched and threatened. But when he was yet 
an unknown man of letters, in his Parisian years, we 
continually find traces in him of mistrust of the people 
about him that can only be regarded as a morbid feeling. 
During the last period of his life this feeling attaches 
especially to two enemies, Eppendorf and Aleander. Ep- 
pendorf has spies everywhere who watch Erasmus’ cor- 
respondence with his friends. Aleander continually sets 
people to combat him, and lies in wait for him wherever 
hecan. His interpretation of the intentions of his assail- 
ants has the ingenious self-centred element which passes 
the borderline of sanity. He sees the whole world full of 
calumny and ambuscades threatening his peace: nearly 
all those who once were his best friends have become his 
bitterest enemies; they wag their venomous tongues at 
banquets, in conversation, in the confessional, in sermons, 
in lectures, at court, in vehicles and ships. The minor 
enemies, like troublesome vermin, drive him to weariness 
of life, or to death by insomnia. He compares his tor- 
tures to the martyrdom of Saint Sebastian, pierced by 
arrows. But his is worse, for there is no end to it. For 


160 ERASMUS 


years he has daily been dying a thousand deaths and that 
alone; for his friends, if such there are, are deterred by 
envy. 

He mercilessly pillories his patrons in a row for their 
stinginess. Now and again there suddenly comes to light 
an undercurrent of aversion and hatred which we did not 
suspect. Where had more good things fallen to his lot 
than in England? Which country had he always praised 
more? But suddenly a bitter and unfounded reproach 
escapes him. England is responsible for his having be- 
come faithless to his monastic vows, “for no other reason 
do I hate Britain more than for this, though it has always 
been pestilent to me.” 

He seldom allows himself to go so far. His expressions 
of hatred or spite are, as a rule, restricted to the feline. 
They are aimed at friends and enemies, Budaeus, Lyp- 
sius, as well as Hutten and Beda. Occasionally we are 
struck by the expression of coarse pleasure at another’s 
misfortune. But in all this, as regards malice, we should 
not measure Erasmus by our ideas of delicacy and gentle- 
ness. Compared with most of his contemporaries he 
remains moderate and refined. 


Erasmus never felt happy, was never content. This 
may perhaps surprise us for a moment, when we 
think of his cheerful, never-failing energy, of his gay 
jests and his humour. But upon reflection this unhappy 
feeling tallies very well with his character. It also pro- 
ceeds from his general attitude of warding off. Even 
when in high spirits he considers himself in all respects 
an unhappy man. “The most miserable of all men, the 
thrice wretched Erasmus,” he calls himself in fine Greek 


ERASMUS’ CHARACTER 161 


terms. His life “is an Iliad of calamities, a chain of mis- 
fortunes. How can anyone envy me?” To no one has 
Fortune been so constantly hostile as to him. She has 
sworn his destruction, thus he sang in his youth in a 
poetical complaint addressed to Gaguin: from earliest 
infancy the same sad and hard fate has been constantly 
pursuing him. Pandora’s whole box seems to have been 
poured out over him. 

This unhappy feeling takes the special form of his 
having been charged by unlucky stars with Herculean 
labour, without profit or pleasure to himself: troubles 
and vexations without end. His life might have been 
so much easier if he had taken his chances. He should 
never have left Italy; or he ought to have stayed in 
England. “But an immoderate love of liberty caused 
me to wrestle long with faithless friends and inveterate 
poverty.” Elsewhere he says more resignedly: “But we 
are driven by fate.” 

That immoderate love of liberty had indeed been as 
Fate to him. He had always been the great seeker of 
quiet and liberty who found liberty late and quiet never. 
By no means ever to bind himself, to incur no obligations 
which might become fetters—again that fear of the en- 
tanglements of life. Thus he remained the great restless 
one. He was never truly satisfied with anything, least 
of all with what he produced himself. “Why, then, do 
you overwhelm us with so many books,” someone at 
Louvain objected, “if you do not really approve of any 





1 Ad. 2001 LB. II, 717B, 77 c. 58A. On the book which Erasmus 
holds in his hand in Holbein’s portrait at Longford Castle, we read 
in Greek: The Labours of Hercules. 


162 ERASMUS 


of them?” And Erasmus answers with Horace’s word: 
“Tn the first place, because I cannot sleep.” 

A sleepless energy, it was that indeed. He cannot 
rest. Still half seasick and occupied with his trunks, 
he is already thinking about an answer to Dorp’s letter, 
just received, censuring the Moria. We should fully 
realise what it means that time after time Erasmus, who, 
by nature, loved quiet and was fearful, and fond of com- 
fort, cleanliness and good fare, undertakes troublesome 
and dangerous journeys, even voyages, which he detests, 
for the sake of his work and of that alone. 

He is not only restless, but also precipitate. Helped 
by an incomparably retentive and capacious memory he 
writes at haphazard. He never becomes anacoluthic; his 
talent is too refined and sure for that; but he does repeat 
himself and is unnecessarily circumstantial. “I rather 
pour out than write everything,” he says. He compares 
his publications to parturitions, nay, to abortions. He 
does not select his subjects, he tumbles into them, and 
having once taken up a subject he finishes without inter- 
mission. For years he has read only twmultuarie, up 
and down all literature; he no longer finds time really 
to refresh his mind by reading, and to work so as to 
please himself. On that account he envied Budaeus. 

“Do not publish too hastily,” More warns him: “you 
are watched to be caught in inexactitudes.” Erasmus 
knows it: he will correct all later, he will ever have to 
revise and to polish everything. He hates the labour of 
revising and correcting, but he submits to it, and 
works passionately, “in the treadmill of Basle,” and, he 
says, finishes the work of six years in eight months. 

In that recklessness and precipitation with which 


ERASMUS’ CHARACTER 163 


Erasmus labours there is again one of the unsolved con- 
tradictions of his being. He is precipitate and careless; 
he wants to be careful and cautious; his mind drives him 
to be the first, his nature restrains him, but usually only 
after the word has been written and published. The 
result is a continual intermingling of explosion and re- 
serve. 

The way in which Erasmus always tries to shirk defi- 
nite statements irritates us. How carefully he always 
tries to represent the Colloquies in which he had spon- 
taneously revealed so much of his inner convictions, mere | 
trifling committed to paper to please his friends. They | 
are only meant to teach correct Latin! And if anything ) 
is said in them touching matters of faith, it is not I who 
say it, is it? As often as he censures classes or offices 
in the Adagia, princes above all, he warns the readers 
not to regard his words as aimed at particular persons. 

Erasmus was a master of reserve. He knew, even when 
he held definite views, how to avoid direct decisions, not 
only out of caution, but because he saw the eternal am- 
biguity of human issues. 

Erasmus ascribes to himself an unusual horror of lies. 
On seeing a liar, he says, he was corporeally affected. As 
a boy he already violently disliked mendacious boys, like 
the little braggart of whom he tells in the Colloquies. 
That this reaction of aversion is genuine is not contra- 
dicted by the fact that we catch Erasmus himself in 
untruths. Inconsistencies, flattery, pieces of cunning, 
white lies, serious suppression of facts, simulated senti- 
ments of respect or sorrow,—they may all be pointed out 
in his letters. He once disavowed his deepest conviction 
for a gratuity from Anne of Borselen by flattering her 


164 ERASMUS 


bigotry. He requested his best friend Batt to tell lies in 
his behalf. He most sedulously denied his authorship of 
the Julius-dialogue, for fear of the consequences, even to 
More, and always in such a way as to avoid saying out- 
right, “I did not write it.”—Those who know other hu- 
manists, and know how frequently and impudently they 
lied, will perhaps think more lightly of Erasmus’ sins. 

For the rest, even during his lifetime he did not escape 
punishment for his eternal reserve, his proficiency in 
semi-conclusions and veiled truths, insinuations and 
slanderous allusions. The accusation of perfidy was often 
cast in his teeth, sometimes in serious indignation. ‘You 
are always engaged in bringing suspicion upon others,” 
Edward Lee exclaims. “How dare you usurp the office 
of a general censor, and condemn what you have hardly 
ever tasted? How dare you despise all but yourself? 
Falsely and insultingly do you expose your antagonist in 
the Colloquia.” Lee quotes the spiteful passage referring 
to himself, and then exclaims: “Now from these words 
the world may come to know its divine, its censor, its 
modest and sincere author, that Erasmian diffidence, 
earnest, decency and honesty! Erasmian modesty has 
long been proverbial. You are always using the words 
‘false accusations.’ You say: if I was consciously guilty 
of the smallest of all his (Lee’s) false accusations, I should 
not dare to approach the Lord’s table!—O man, who are 
you, to judge another, a servant who stands or falls be- 
fore his Lord?” 

This was the first violent attack from the conservative 
side, in the beginning of 1520, when the mighty struggle 
which Luther’s action had unchained kept the world in 
ever greater suspense. Half a year later followed the 


ERASMUS’ CHARACTER 165 


first serious reproaches on the part of radical reformers. 
Ulrich von Hutten, the impetuous, somewhat foggy- 
headed knight, who wanted to see Luther’s cause triumph 
as the national cause of Germany, turns to Erasmus 
whom, at one time, he had enthusiastically acclaimed as 
the man of the new weal, with the urgent appeal not to 
forsake the cause of the reformation or to compromise 
it. “You have shown yourself fearful in the affair of 
Reuchlin; now in that of Luther you do your utmost to 
convince his adversaries that you are altogether averse 
from it, though we know better. Do not disown us. You 
know how triumphantly certain letters of yours are cir- 
culated, in which to protect yourself from suspicion, you 
rather meanly fasten it on others. ... If you are now 
afraid to incur a little hostility for my sake, concede me 
at least that you will not allow yourself, out of fear for 
another, to be tempted to renounce me; rather be silent 
about me.” 

Those were bitter reproaches. In the man who had 
to swallow them there was a puny Erasmus who deserved 
those reproaches, who took offence at them, but did not 
take them to heart, who continued to act with prudent 
reserve till Hutten’s friendship was turned to hatred. 
In him was also a great Erasmus who knew how under 
the passion and infatuation with which the parties com- 
bated each other, the Truth he sought, and the Love he 
hoped would subdue the world, were obscured; who 
knew the God whom he professed too high to take sides. 
Let us try ever to see of that great Erasmus as much 
as the petty one permits. 


XV 
AT LOUVAIN 


ERASMUS AT LOUVAIN, 1517-HE EXPECTS THE RENOVATION 
OF THE CHURCH AS THE FRUIT OF GOOD LEARNING— 
CONTROVERSY WITH LEFEVRE D’ETAPLES—-SECOND 
JOURNEY TO BASLE, 1513-HE REVISES THE EDITION OF 
THE NEW TESTAMENT—CONTROVERSIES WITH LATOMUS, 
BRIARD AND LEE—ERASMUS REGARDS THE OPPOSITION 
OF CONSERVATIVE THEOLOGY MERELY AS A CON- 
SPIRACY AGAINST GOOD LEARNING. 

When Erasmus established himself at Louvain in the 
summer of 1517 he had a vague presentiment that great 
changes were at hand. “I fear,” he writes in September, 
“that a great subversion of affairs is being brought about 
here, if God’s favour and the piety and wisdom of princes 
do not concern themselves about human matters.” But 
the forms which that great change would assume he did 
not in the least realise. 

He regarded his removal as merely temporary. It was 
only to last “till we shall have seen which place of resi- 
dence is best fit for old age, which is already knocking.” 
There is something pathetic in the man who desires 
nothing but quiet and liberty, and who through his own 
restlessness and his inability not to concern himself 
about other people, never found a really fixed abode or 
true independence. Erasmus is one of those people who 
always seem to say: to-morrow, to-morrow! I must first 
deal with this, and then . . . As soon as he shall be 
ready with the new edition of the New Testament and 
shall have extricated himself from troublesome and dis- 


166 


AT LOUVAIN 167. 


agreeable theological controversies, in which he finds 
himself entangled against his wish, he will sleep, hide 
himself, “sing for himself and the Muses.” But that 
time never.came. 

Where to: live when he shall be free? Spain, to which 
Cardinal Ximenes called him, did not appeal to him. Of 
Germany, he says, the stoves and the insecurity deter 
him. In England the servitude which was required of 
him there revolted him. But in the Netherlands them- 
selves, he did not feel at his ease, either: “Here I am 
barked at a great deal, and there is no remuneration; 
though I desired it ever so much, I could not bear to 
stay here long.” Yet he remained for four years. 

Erasmus had good friends in the University of Louvain. 
At first he put up with his old host Johannes Paludanus, 
Rhetor of the University, whose house he exchanged that 
summer for quarters in the College of the Lily. Martin 
Dorp, a Dutchman, like himself, had not been estranged 
from him by their polemics about the Moria; his good 
will was of great importance to Erasmus, because of 
the important place Dorp occupied in the theological 
faculty. And lastly, though his old patron, Adrian of 
Utrecht, afterwards Pope, had by that time been called 
away from Louvain to higher dignities, his influence had 
not diminished in consequence; rather increased; for 
just about that time he had been made a cardinal. 

Erasmus was received with great complaisance by the 
Louvain divines. Their leader, the vice-chancellor of the 
University, Jean Briard of Ath, repeatedly expressed his 
approval of the edition of the New Testament, to Eras- 
mus’ great satisfaction. Soon Erasmus found himself a 
member of the theological faculty. 


168 ERASMUS 


Yet he did not feel at his ease among the Louvain 
theologians. The atmosphere was a great deal less con- 
genial to him than that of the world of the English 
scholars. Here he felt a spirit which he did not under- 
stand and distrusted in consequence. 

In the years in which the Reformation began, Eras- 
mus was the victim of a great misunderstanding, the 
result of the fact that his delicate, aesthetic, hovering 
spirit understood neither the profoundest depths of the 
faith, nor the hard necessities of human society. He was 
neither mystic nor realist. Luther was both. To Eras- 
mus the great problem of Church and state and society 
seemed simple. Nothing was required but restoration 
and purification by a return to the original, unspoilt 
sources of Christianity. A number of accretions to the 
faith, rather ridiculous than revolting, had to be cleared 
away. All should be reduced to the nucleus of faith, 
Christ and the Gospel. Forms, ceremonies, speculations 
should make room for the practice of true piety. The 
Gospel was easily intelligible to everybody and within 
everybody’s reach. And the means to reach all this was 
good learning, bonae literae. Had he not himself, by his 
edition of the New Testament and of Jerome, and even 
earlier by the now famous Enchiridion, done most of 
what had to be done? “I hope that what now pleases 
the upright, will soon please all.” As early as the begin- 
ning of 1517 Erasmus had written to Wolfgang Fabricius 
Capito, in the tone of one who has accomplished the 
great task. “Well then, take you the torch from us. 
The work will henceforth be a great deal easier and 
cause far less hatred and envy. We have lived through 
the first shock.” 


AT LOUVAIN 169 


Budaeus writes to Tunstall in May, 1517: “Was any- 
one born under such inauspicious Graces that the dull 
and obscure discipline (scholasticism) does not revolt 
him, since sacred literature, too, cleansed by Erasmus’ 
diligence, has regained its ancient purity and brightness? 
But it is still much greater that he should have effected 
by the same labour the emergence of sacred truth itself 
out of that Cimmerian darkness, even though divinity is 
not yet quite free from the dirt of the sophist school. 
If that should occur one day, it will be owing to the 
beginnings made in our times.” ‘The philologist Budaeus 
believed even more firmly than Erasmus that faith was 
a matter of erudition. 

It could not but vex Erasmus that not everyone ac- 
cepted the cleansed truth at once. How could people 
continue to oppose themselves to what, to him, seemed 
as clear as daylight and so simple? He who so sincerely 
would have liked to live in peace with all the world, 
found himself involved in a series of polemics. To let 
the opposition of opponents pass unnoticed was forbidden 
not only by his character, for ever striving to justify 
himself in the eyes of the world, but also by the custom 
of his time, so eager for dispute. 

There were, first of all, his polemics with Jacques Le- 
févre d’Etaples, or in Latinized form, Faber Stapulensis, | 
the Parisian theologian, who as a preparer of the Refor- — 
mation may, more than anyone else, be ranked with Eras- 
mus. At the moment when Erasmus got into the travel- 
ling cart which was to take him to Louvain a friend drew 
his attention to a passage in the new edition of Faber’s 
commentary on Paul’s epistles, in which he controverted 
Erasmus’ note on the Second Epistle to the Hebrews, 


170 ERASMUS 


verse 7. Erasmus at once bought Faber’s book, and soon 
published an apology. It concerned Christ’s relation to 
God and the angels, but the dogmatic point at issue 
hinged, after all, on a philological interpretation of Eras- 
mus’. 

Not yet accustomed to much direct wrangling, Erasmus 
was violently agitated by the matter, the more as he 
esteemed Faber highly and considered him a congenial 
spirit. “What on earth has occurred to the man? Have 
others set him on against me? All theologians agree that 
I am right,” he asserts. It makes him nervous that Faber 
does not reply again at once. Badius has told Peter 
Gilles that Faber is sorry about it. Erasmus in a dig- 
nified letter appeals to their friendship; he will suffer 
himself to be taught and censured. Then again he 
growls: let him be careful. And he thinks that his con- 
troversy with Faber keeps the world in suspense: there 
is not a meal at which the guests do not side with one or 
the other of them. But finally the combat abated and 
the friendship was preserved. 

Towards Easter, 1518, Erasmus contemplated a new 
journey to Basle, there to pass through the press during 
a few months of hard labour, the corrected edition of 
the New Testament. He did not fail to request the 
chiefs of conservative divinity at Louvain beforehand to 
state their objections to his work. Briard of Ath de- 
clared he had found nothing offensive in it, after he had 
first been told all sorts of bad things about it. “Then 
the new edition will please you much better,” Eras- 
mus had said. His friend Dorp and James Latomus, 
also one of the chief divines, had expressed themselves 
in the same sense, and the Carmelite Nicholas of Egmond 


AT LOUVAIN 171 


had said that he had never read Erasmus’ work. Only a 
young Englishman, Edward Lee, who was studying Greek 
at Louvain, had summarised a number of criticisms into 
ten conclusions. Erasmus had got rid of the matter by 
writing to Lee that he had not been able to get hold 
of his conclusions and therefore could not make use 
of them. But his youthful critic had not put up with 
being slighted so, and worked out his objections in a more 
circumstantial treatise. 

Thus Erasmus set out for Basle once more in May, 
1518. He had been obliged to ask all his English friends 
(of whom Ammonius had been taken from him by death 
in 1517) for support to defray the expenses of the jour- 
ney; he kept holding out to them the prospect that, after 
his work was finished, he would return to England. In 
a letter to Martin Lypsius, as he was going up the Rhine, 
he answered Lee’s criticism, which had irritated him ex- 
tremely. In revising his edition he not only took it but 
little into account, but ventured, moreover, this time to 
print his own translation of the New Testament of 1506 
without any alterations. At the same time he obtained 
for the new edition a letter of approval from the Pope, 
a redoubtable weapon, against his cavillers. 

At Basle Erasmus worked again like a horse in a tread- 
mill. But he was really in his element. Even before the 
second edition of the New Testament, the Enchiridion 
and the Institutio Principis Christiani were reprinted by 
Froben. On his return journey, Erasmus, whose work had 
been hampered all through the summer by indisposition, 
and who had, on that account, been unable to finish it, 
fell seriously ill. He reached Louvain with difficulty 
(21st Sept., 1518). It might be the pestilence, and Eras- 


172 ERASMUS 


mus, ever much afraid of contagion himself, now took all 
precautions to safeguard his friends against it. He 
avoided his quarters in the College of the Lily, and 
found shelter with his most trusted friend, Dirck Maer- 
tensz, the printer. But in spite of rumours of the plague 
and his warnings, first Dorp and afterwards also Ath 
came, at once, to visit him. Evidently the Louvain pro- 
fessors did not mean so badly by him, after all. 

But the differences between Erasmus and the Louvain 
faculty were deeply rooted. Lee, hurt by the little at- 
tention paid by Erasmus to his objections, prepared a 
new critique, but kept it from Erasmus, for the present, 
which irritated the latter and made him nervous. In the 
meantime a new opponent arose. Directly after his return 
to Louvain, Erasmus had taken much trouble to promote 
the establishment of the Collegium Trilingue, projected 
and endowed by Jerome Busleiden, in his testament, 
to be founded in the university. The three biblical lan- 
guages, Hebrew, Greek and Latin, were to be taught 
there. Now when James Latomus, a member of the 
theological faculty and a man whom he esteemed, in a 
dialogue about the study of those three languages and of 
theology, doubted the utility of the former, Erasmus 
judged himself concerned, and answered Latomus in an 
apology. About the same time (spring 1519) he got into 
trouble with Ath, the vice-chancellor himself. Erasmus 
thought that the latter had publicly censured him with 
regard to his Praise of Marriage, which had recently ap- 
peared. Though Ath withdrew at once, Erasmus could 
not abstain from writing an Apologia, however moderate, 
Meanwhile the smouldering quarrel with Lee assumed 
ever more hateful forms. In vain did Erasmus’ English 


AT LOUVAIN 173 


friends attempt to restrain their young, ambitious com- 
patriot. Erasmus on his part irritated him furtively. 
He reveals in this whole dispute a lack of self-control and 
dignity which shows his weakest side. Usually so anxious 
as to decorum he now lapses into invectives: The British 
adder, Satan, even the old taunt ascribing a tail to Eng- 
lishmen has to serve once more. The points at issue 
disappear altogether behind the bitter mutual reproaches. 
In his unrestrained anger, Krasmus avails himself of the 
most unworthy weapons. He eggs his German friends on 
to write against Lee and to ridicule him in all his folly 
and brag, and then he assures all his English friends: 
“All Germany is literally furious with Lee; I have the 
greatest trouble in keeping them back.” 

Alack! Germany had other causes of disturbance: it 
is 1520 and the three great polemics of Luther were 
setting the world on fire. 

Though one may excuse the violence and the petty 
spitefulness of Erasmus in this matter, as resulting from 
an over-sensitive heart, falling somewhat short in really 
manly qualities, yet it is difficult to deny that he failed 
completely to understand both the arguments of his 
adversaries and the great movements of his time. 

It was very easy for Erasmus to mock the narrow- 
mindedness of conservative divines who thought that 
there would be an end to faith in Holy Scripture as soon 
as the emendation of the text was attempted. “ ‘They 
correct the Holy Gospel, nay, the Pater Noster itself!’ 
the preacher exclaims indignantly in the sermon before 
his surprised congregation. As if I cavilled at Matthew 
and Luke, instead of those who, out of ignorance and 
carelessness, have corrupted them. What do people 


174 ERASMUS 


wish? That the Church should possess Holy Scripture 
as correct as possible, or not?” This reasoning seemed to 
Erasmus, with his passionate need of purity, a conclusive 
refutation. But instinct did not deceive his adversaries, 
when it told them that doctrine itself was at stake, 
if the linguistic judgment of a single individual might 
decide as to the correct version of a text. And Erasmus 
wished to avoid the inferences which assailed doctrine. 
He was not aware of the fact that his conceptions of the 
Church, the sacraments, the dogmas were no longer 
purely Catholic, because they had become subordinated 
to his philologic insight. He could not be aware of it, 
because he, in spite of all his natural piety and his fervent 
ethical sentiments, lacked the mystic insight which is the 
foundation of every creed. 

It was this personal lack in Erasmus which made him 
unable to understand the real grounds of the resistance 
of Catholic orthodoxy. How was it possible that so 
many, and among them men of high consideration, re- 
fused to accept what to him seemed so clear and irrefut- 
able! He interpreted the fact in a highly personal 
way. He, the man who would so gladly have lived in 
peace with all the world, who so yearned for sympathy 
and recognition, and bore enmity with difficulty, saw the 
ranks of haters and opponents increase about him. He 
did not understand how they feared his mocking acri- 
mony, how many wore the scar of a wound that the 
Moria had made. That real and supposed hatred troub- 
led Erasmus. He sees his enemies as a sect. It is espe- 
cially the Dominicans and the Carmelites who are ill- 
affected towards the new scientific theology. Just then 
a new adversary had arisen at Louvain in the person of 


AT LOUVAIN 175 


his compatriot Nicholas of Egmond, prior of the Carmel- 
ites, henceforth an object of particular abhorrence to 
him. It is remarkable that at Louvain Erasmus found 
his fiercest opponents in some compatriots, in the nar- 
rower sense of the word: Vincent Dirks of Haarlem, 
William of Vianen, Ruurd Tapper. The persecution 
increases: the venom of slander spreads more and more 
every day and becomes more deadly; the greatest un- 
truths are impudently preached about him; he calls in 
the help of Ath, the vice-chancellor, against them. But 
it is no use; the hidden enemies laugh; let him write 
for the erudites, who are few; we shall bark to stir up 
the people. After 1520 he writes again and again: “I 
am stoned every day.” 

But Erasmus, however much he might see himself, not 
without reason, at the centre, could, in 1519 and 1520, no 
longer be blind to the fact that the great struggle did not 
concern him alone. On all sides the battle was being 
fought. What is it, that great commotion about matters 
of spirit and of faith? 

The answer which Erasmus gave himself was this: it 
is a great and wilful conspiracy on the part of the con- 
servatives to suffocate good learning and make the old 
ignorance triumph. This idea recurs innumerable times 
in his letters after the middle of 1518. “I know quite 
certainly,” he writes on the 21st of March, 1519, to one 
of his German friends, “that the barbarians on all sides 
have conspired to leave no stone unturned till they have 
suppressed bonae literae.” “Here we are still fighting 
with the protectors of the old ignorance”; cannot Wolsey 
persuade the Pope to stop it here? All that appertains 
to ancient and cultured literature is called “poetry” by 


176 ERASMUS 


those narrow-minded fellows. By that word they indi- 
cate everything that savours of a more elegant doctrine, 
that is to say all that they have not learned themselves. 
All the tumult, the whole tragedy—under these terms he 
usually refers to the great theological struggle—originates 
in the hatred of bonae literae. “This is the source and 
hot-bed of all this tragedy; incurable hatred of linguistic 
study and the bonae literae.” ‘Luther provokes those 
enemies, whom it is impossible to conquer, though their 
cause is a bad one. And meanwhile envy harasses the 
bonae literae, which are attacked at his (Luther’s) insti- 
gation by these gadflies. They are already nearly insuf- 
ferable, when things do not go well with them; but who 
can stand them when they triumph? Either I am blind, 
or they aim at something else than Luther. They are 
preparing to conquer the phalanx of the Muses.” 

This was written by Erasmus to a member of the Uni- 
versity of Leipsic in December, 1520. This one-sided and 
academic conception of the great events, a conception 
which arose in the study of a recluse bending over his 
books, did more than anything else to prevent Erasmus 
from understanding the true nature and purport of the 
Reformation. 


—_ 


XVI 
FIRST YEARS OF THE REFORMATION 


BEGINNING OF THE RELATIONS BETWEEN ERASMUS AND 
LUTHER—ARCHBISHOP ALBERT OF MAYENCE, 1517— 
PROGRESS OF THE REFORMATION—LUTHER TRIES TO 
BRING ABOUT A RAPPROCHEMENT WITH ERASMUS, 
MARCH, 1519—ERASMUS KEEPS ALOOF; FANCIES HE MAY 
YET ACT AS A CONCILIATOR—HIS ATTITUDE BECOMES 
AMBIGUOUS—HE DENIES EVER MORE EMPHATICALLY 
ALL RELATIONS WITH LUTHER AND RESOLVES TO RE- 
MAIN A SPECTATOR—HE IS PRESSED BY EITHER CAMP 
TO TAKE SIDES—ALEANDER IN THE NETHERLANDS— 
THE DIET OF WORMS, 152I-ERASMUS LEAVES LOUVAIN 
TO SAFEGUARD HIS FREEDOM, OCTOBER, 1521. 

About the close of 1516 Erasmus received a letter 
from the librarian and secretary of Frederick, elector of 
Saxony, George Spalatinus, written in the respectful and 
reverential tone in which the great man was now ap- 
proached. “We all esteem you here most highly; the 
elector has all your books in his library and intends to 
buy everything you may publish in future.” But the 
object of Spalatinus’ letter was the execution of a friend’s 
commission. An Augustinian ecclesiastic, a great ad- 
mirer of Erasmus, had requested him to direct his atten- 
tion to the fact that in his interpretation of St. Paul, 
especially in the epistle to the Romans, Erasmus had 
failed to conceive the idea of justitia correctly, had paid 
too little attention to original sin: he might profit by 
reading Augustine. 

The nameless Austin friar was Luther, then still un- 
known outside the circle of the Wittenberg University, 


177 


178 ERASMUS 


in which he was a professor, and the criticism regarded 
the cardinal point of his hardly acquired conviction: 
justification by faith. 

Erasmus paid little attention to this letter. He re- 
ceived so many of that sort, containing still more praise 
and no criticism. If he answered it, the reply did not 
reach Spalatinus, and later Erasmus completely forgot 
the whole letter. 

Nine months afterwards, in September, 1517, when 
Erasmus had been at Louvain for a short time, he re- 
ceived an honourable invitation, written by the first 
prelate of the Empire, the young archbishop of May- 
ence, Albert of Brandenburg himself. The archbishop 
would be pleased to see him on an occasion: he greatly 
admired his work (he knew it so little as to speak of 
Erasmus’ emendation of the Old Testament, instead of 
the New) and hoped that he would one day write some 
lives of saints in elegant style. 

The young Hohenzoller, advocate of the new light of 
classical studies, whose attention had probably been 
drawn to Erasmus by Hutten and Capito, who sojourned 
at his court, had recently become engaged in one of the 
boldest political and financial transactions of his time. 
His elevation to the see of Mayence, at the age of 
twenty-four, had necessitated a papal dispensation, as he 
also wished to keep the archbishopric of Magdeburg and 
the see of Halberstadt. This accumulation of ecclesiastical 
offices had to be made subservient to the Brandenburg 
policy which opposed the rival house of Saxony. The 
Pope granted the dispensation in return for a great sum 
of money, but to facilitate its payment he accorded to 
the archbishop a liberal indulgence for the whole arch- 


FIRST YEARS OF THE REFORMATION 179 


bishopric of Mayence, Magdeburg and the Brandenburg 
territories. Albert, to whom half the proceeds were 
tacitly left, raised a loan with the house of Fugger, and 
this charged itself with the indulgence traffic. 

When in December, 1517, Erasmus answered the 
archbishop, Luther’s propositions against indulgences, 
provoked by the archbishop of Mayence’s instructions 
regarding their colportage, had already been posted up 
(31st October, 1517), and were circulated throughout 
Germany, rousing the whole Church. They were levelled 
at the same abuses which Erasmus combated, the me- 
chanical, atomistical, and juridical conception of religion. 
But how different was their practical effect, as compared 
with Erasmus’ pacific endeavour to purify the Church 
by lenient means! 

“Lives of saints?” Erasmus asked replying to the arch- 
bishop. “I have tried in my poor way to add a little 
light to the prince of saints himself. For the rest, your 
endeavours, in addition to so many difficult matters of 
government, and at such an early age, to get the lives 
of the saints purged of old woman’s tales and disgusting 
style, is extremely laudable. For nothing should be suf- 
fered in the Church that is not perfectly pure or refined.” 
And he concludes with a magnificent eulogy of the excel- 
lent prelate. 

During the greater part of 1518, Erasmus was too much 
occupied by his own affairs—the journey to Basle and 
his red-hot labours there, and afterwards his serious ill- 
ness—to concern himself much with Luther’s business. 
In March he sends Luther’s theses to More, without 
comment, and, in passing, complains to Colet about the 
impudence with which Rome disseminates indulgences. 


180 -ERASMUS 


Luther, now declared a heretic and summoned to appear 
at Augsburg, stands before the legate Cajetanus and 
refuses to recant. Seething enthusiasm surrounds him. 
Just about that time Erasmus writes to one of Luther’s 
partisans, John Lang, in very favourable terms about 
his work. The theses have pleased everybody. “I see 
that the monarchy of the Pope at Rome, as it is now, 
is a pestilence to Christendom, but I do not know if it is 
expedient to touch that sore openly. That would be a 
matter for princes, but I fear that these will act in con- 
cert with the Pope to secure part of the spoils. I do not 
understand what possessed Eck to take up arms against 
Luther.” The letter did not find its way into any of the 
collections. 

The year 1519 brought the struggle attending the elec- 
tion of an emperor, after old Maximilian had died in Jan- 
uary, and the attempt of the curia to regain ground with 
lenity. Germany was expecting the long-projected dis- 
putation between Johannes Eck and Andreas Karlstadt 
which, in truth, would concern Luther. How could Eras- 
mus, who himself was involved that year in so many 
polemics, have foreseen that the Leipsic disputation, 
which was to lead Luther to the consequence of rejecting 
the highest ecclesiastical authority, would remain of last- 
ing importance in the history of the world, whereas his 
quarrel with Lee would be forgotten? 

On the 28th of March, 1519, Luther addressed himself 
personally to Erasmus for the first time. “I speak with 
you so often, and you with me, Erasmus, our ornament 
and our hope; and we do not know each other as yet.” 
He rejoices to find that Erasmus displeases many, for 
this he regards as a sign that God has blessed him. Now 


FIRST YEARS OF THE REFORMATION 181 


that his, Luther’s, name, begins to get known too, a longer 
silence between them might be wrongly interpreted. 
“Therefore, my Erasmus, amiable man, if you think fit, 
acknowledge also this little brother in Christ, who really 
admires you and feels friendly disposed towards you, 
and for the rest would deserve no better, because of his 
ignorance than to lie, unknown, buried in a corner.” 
There was a very definite purpose in this somewhat 
rustically cunning and half ironical letter. Luther 
wanted, if possible, to make Erasmus show his colours, 
to win him, the powerful authority, touchstone of science 
and culture, for the cause which he advocated. In his 
heart Luther had long been aware of the deep gulf 
separating him from Erasmus. As early as March, 1517, 
half a year before his public appearance, he wrote about 
Erasmus to John Lang: “human matters weigh heavier 
with him than divine,” an opinion that so many have 
pronounced about Erasmus,—obvious, and yet unfair. 
The attempt, on the part of Luther, to effect a rap- 
prochement was a reason for Erasmus to retire at once. 
Now began that extremely ambiguous policy of Erasmus 
to preserve peace by his authority as a light of the world 
and to steer a middle course without committing himself. 
In that attitude the great and the petty side of his per- 
sonality are inextricably intertwined. The error because 
of which most historians have seen Erasmus’ attitude 
towards the Reformation, either in far too unfavourable 
a light, or,—as for instance the German historian Kal- 
koff—much too heroic and far-seeing, is that they erro- 
neously regard him as psychologically homogeneous. Just 
that he is not. His double-sidedness roots in the depths 
of his being. Many of his utterances during the struggle 


182 ERASMUS 


proceed directly from his fear and lack of character, 
also from his inveterate dislike of siding with a person 
or a cause; but behind that is always his deep and fer- 
vent conviction that neither of the conflicting opinions 
can completely express the truth, that human hatred and 
purblindness infatuate the minds. And with that con- 
viction is allied the noble illusion that it might yet be 
possible to preserve the peace, by moderation, insight, 
and kindliness. 

In April, 1519, Erasmus addressed himself by letter 
to the elector Frederick of Saxony, Luther’s patron. 
He begins by alluding to his dedication of Suetonius 
two years before; but his real purpose is to say some- 
thing about Luther. Luther’s writings, he says, have 
given the Louvain obscurants plenty of reason to in- 
veigh against the bonae literae, to decry all scholars. 
He himself does not know Luther and has glanced 
through his writings only cursorily as yet, but everyone 
praises his life. How little in accordance with theological 
gentleness it is, to condemn him offhand, and that before 
the indiscreet vulgar! For has he not proposed a dis- 
pute, submitted himself to everybody’s judgment? No 
one has, so far, admonished, taught, convinced him. 
Every error is not at once heresy. 

The best of Christianity is a life worthy of Christ. 
Where we find that, we should not rashly suspect people 
of heresy. Why do we so uncharitably persecute the 
lapses of others, though none of us is free from error? 
Why do we rather want to conquer than cure, suppress 
than instruct? 

But he concludes with a word that could not but please 
Luther’s friends, who so hoped for his support. “May 


FIRST YEARS OF THE REFORMATION 183 


the duke prevent an innocent man from being surren- 
dered under the cloak of piety to the impiety of a few. 
This is also the wish of Pope Leo, who has nothing more 
at heart than that innocence be safe.” 

At this same time Erasmus does his best to keep 
Froben back from publishing Luther’s writings, “that 
they may not fan the hatred of the bonae literae still 
more.” And he keeps repeating: I do not know Luther, 
I have not read his writings. He makes this declaration 
to Luther himself, in his reply to the latter’s epistle of 
the 28th of March. This letter of Erasmus, dated May 
30th, 1519, should be regarded as a newspaper leader, 
to acquaint the public with his attitude towards the 
Luther question. Luther does not know the tragedies 
which his writings have caused at Louvain. People here 
think that Erasmus has helped him in composing them 
and call him the standard bearer of the party! That 
seemed to them a fitting pretext to suppress the bonae 
literae. “I have declared that you are perfectly un- 
known to me, that I have not yet read your books and 
therefore neither approve nor disapprove anything.” 

“T reserve myself, so far as I may, to be of use to 
the reviving studies. Discreet moderation seems likely 
to bring better progress than impetuosity. It was by 
this that Christ subjugated the world.” 

On the same day he writes to John Lang, one of 
Luther’s friends and followers, a short note, not meant 
for publication: “I hope that the endeavours of your- 
self and your party will be successful. Here the Papists 
rave violently.... All the best minds are rejoiced 
at Luther’s boldness: I do not doubt he will be careful 
that things do not end in a quarrel of parties! ... We 


184 ERASMUS 


shall never triumph over feigned Christians unless we 
first abolish the tyranny of the Roman see, and of its 
satellites, the Dominicans, the Franciscans and the Car- 
melites. But no one could attempt that without a serious 
tumult.” 

As the gulf widens, Erasmus’ protestations that 
he has nothing to do with Luther become much more 
frequent. Relations at Louvain grew ever more dis- 
agreeable and the general sentiment about him ever 
more unkind. In August, 1519, he turns to the Pope 
himself for protection against his opponents. He still 
fails to see how wide the breach is. He still takes it all 
to be quarrels of scholars. King Henry of England and 
King Francis of France in their own countries have im- 
posed silence upon the quarrelers and slanderers; if only 
the Pope would do the same! 

In October he was once more reconciled with the 
Louvain faculty. It was just at this time that Colet 
died in London,—the man who had, better perhaps than 
any one else, understood Erasmus’ standpoint. Kindred 
spirits in Germany still looked up to Erasmus as the 
great man who was on the alert to interpose at the right 
moment and who had made moderation the catchword, 
until the time should come to give his friends the signal. 

But in the increasing noise of the battle his voice 
already sounded less powerfully than before. A letter to 
Cardinal Albert of Mayence, of October 19th, 1519, of 
about the same content as that to Frederick of Saxony, 
written in the preceding spring, was at once circulated by 
Luther’s friends; and by the advocates of conservatism, in 
spite of the usual protestation, “I do not know Luther,” 
it was made to serve against Erasmus. 


FIRST YEARS OF THE REFORMATION 185 


It became more and more clear that the mediating 
and conciliatory position which Erasmus wished to take 
up would soon be altogether untenable. The inquisitor 
Jacob Hoogstraten had come from Cologne, where he was 
a member of the University, to Louvain, to work against 
Luther there, as he had worked against Reuchlin. On 
the 7th of November, 1519, the Louvain faculty, follow- 
ing the example of that of Cologne, proceeded to take 
the decisive step: the solemn condemnation of a number 
of Luther’s opinions. In future no place could be less 
suitable to Erasmus than Louvain, the citadel of action 
against reformers. It is surprising that he remained there 
another two years. 

The expectation that he would be able to speak the 
conciliating word was paling. For the rest he failed to 
see the true proportions. During the first months of 1520 
his attention was almost entirely taken up by his own 
polemics with Lee, a paltry incident in the great revo- 
lution. The desire to keep aloof got more and more the 
upper hand of him. In June he writes to Melanchthon: 
“I see that matters begin to look like sedition. It is 
perhaps necessary that scandals occur, but I should pre- 
fer not to be the author.” He has, he thinks, by his 
influence with Wolsey, prevented the burning of Luther’s 
writings in England, which had been ordered. But he 
was mistaken. The burning had taken place in London, 
as early as the 12th of May. 

The best proof that Erasmus had practically given up 
his hope to play a conciliatory part may be found in 
what follows. In the summer of 1520 the famous meet- 
ing between the three monarchs, Henry VIII, Francis I 
and Charles V, took place at Calais. Erasmus was to 


186 ERASMUS 


go there in the train of his prince. How would such 
a congress of princes,—where in peaceful conclave the 
interests of France, England, Spain, the German Empire 
and a considerable part of Italy were represented to- 
gether—have affected Erasmus’ imagination, if his ideal 
had remained unshaken! But there are no traces of 
this. Erasmus was at Calais in July, 1520, had some 
conversation with Henry VIII there, and greeted More, 
but it does not appear that he attached any other im- 
portance to the journey than that of an opportunity, 
for the last time, to greet his English friends. 

It was awkward for Erasmus that just at this time, 

when the cause of faith took so much harsher forms, 
his duties as counsellor to the youthful Charles, now 
back from Spain to be crowned as emperor, circum- 
scribed his liberty more than before. In the summer of 
1520 appeared, based on the incriminating material fur- 
nished by the Louvain faculty, the papal bull declaring 
Luther to be a heretic, and, unless he should speedily 
recant, excommunicating him. “I fear the worst for the 
unfortunate Luther,’ Erasmus writes, September 9, 
1520, “so does conspiracy rage everywhere, so princes 
are incensed with him on all sides, and, most of all, Pope 
Leo. Would Luther had followed my advice and ab- 
stained from those hostile and seditious actions! 
They will not rest until they have quite subverted the 
study of languages and the good learning. . . . Out 
of the hatred against these and the stupidity of monks 
did this tragedy first arise. . . . I do not meddle with 
it. For the rest, a bishopric is waiting for me if I choose 
to write against Luther.” 

Indeed, Erasmus had become, by virtue of his enor- 


——— 


FIRST YEARS OF THE REFORMATION 187 


mous celebrity, as circumstances would have it, more and 
more a valuable asset in the great policy of emperor and 
pope. People wanted to use his name and make him 
choose sides. And that he would not do for any con- 
sideration. He wrote evasively to the Pope about his 
relations with Luther without altogether disavowing him. 
How zealously he defends himself from the suspicion of 
being on Luther’s side as noisy monks make out in their 
sermons, who summarily link the two in their scoffing 
disparagement. 

But also by the other side he is pressed to choose sides 
and to speak out. Towards the end of October, 1520, the 
coronation of the emperor took place at Aix-la-Chapelle. 
Erasmus was perhaps present; in any case he accom- 
panied the Emperor to Cologne. There, on the 5th of 
November, he had an interview about Luther with the 
Elector Frederick of Saxony. He was persuaded to write 
down the result of that discussion in the form of 22 
Axiomata concerning Luther’s cause. Against his inten- 
tion they were printed at once. 

Erasmus’ hesitation in those days between the repudia- 
tion and the approbation of Luther is not discreditable 
to him. It is the tragic defect running through his whole 
personality: this refusal or inability ever to draw ulti- 
mate conclusions. Had he only been a calculating and 
selfish nature, afraid of losing his life, he would long 
since have altogether forsaken Luther’s cause. It is his 
misfortune affecting his fame, that he continually shows 
his weaknesses, whereas what is great in him lies deep. 

At Cologne Erasmus also met the man, with whom, as a 
promising young humanist, 14 years younger than him- 
self, he had, for some months, shared a room in the 


188 | ERASMUS 


house of Aldus’ father-in-law, at Venice: Hieronymus 
Aleander, now sent to the Emperor as a papal nuncio, to 
persuade him to conform his imperial policy to that of 
the Pope, in the matter of the great ecclesiastical ques- 
tion, and give effect to the papal excommunication by the 
imperial ban. 

It must have been somewhat painful for Erasmus that 
this friend had so far surpassed him in power and posi- 
tion, and was now called to bring by diplomatic means 
the solution which he himself would have liked to see 
achieved by ideal harmony, good will and toleration. He 
had never trusted Aleander, and was more than ever on 
his guard against him. As a humanist, in spite of bril- 
liant gifts, Aleander was by far Erasmus’ inferior, and 
had never, like him, risen from literature to serious 
theological studies; he had simply prospered in the ser- 
vice of Church magnates (whom Erasmus had given up 
early). This man was now invested with the highest 
mediating powers. 

To what degree of exasperation Erasmus’ most violent 
antagonists at Louvain had now been reduced, is seen 
from the witty and slightly malicious account he gives 
Thomas More of his meeting with Egmondanus, before 
the rector of the university who wanted to reconcile 
them. Still things did not look so black as Ulrich von 
Hutten thought, when he wrote to Erasmus: “Do you 
think that you are still safe, now that Luther’s books 
are burned? Fly, and save yourself for us!” 

Ever more emphatic do Erasmus’ protestations be- 
come that he has nothing to do with Luther. Long ago 
he had already requested him not to mention his name, 
and Luther promised it: “Very well, then, I shall not 


FIRST YEARS OF THE REFORMATION 189 


again refer to you, neither will other good friends, since 
it troubles you.” Ever louder, too, are Erasmus’ com- 
plaints become about the raving of the monks at him, 
and his demands that the mendicant orders may be de- 
prived of the right to preach. 

In April, 1521, comes the moment in the world’s his- 
tory to which Christendom has been looking forward: 
Luther at the Diet of Worms, holding fast to his opin- 
ions, confronted by the highest authority in the Empire. 
So great is the rejoicing in Germany that for a moment 
it may seem that the emperor’s power is in danger 
rather than Luther and his adherents. “If I had been 
present,” writes Erasmus, “I should have endeavoured 
that this tragedy would have been so tempered by mod- 
erate arguments that it could not afterwards break out 
again to the still greater detriment of the world.” 

The imperial sentence was pronounced: within the 
Empire (as in the Burgundian Netherlands before that 
time) Luther’s books were to be burned, his adherents 
arrested and their goods confiscated, and Luther was to 
be given up to the authorities. 

Erasmus hopes that now relief will follow. “The 
Luther tragedy is at an end with us here; would it had 
never appeared on the stage.” In these days Albrecht 
Diirer, on hearing the false news of Luther’s death, wrote 
in the diary of his journey that passionate exclamation: 
“OQ Erasmus of Rotterdam, where will you be? Hear, 
you knight of Christ, ride forth beside the Lord Christ, 
protect the truth, obtain the martyrs’ crown. For you 
are but an old manikin. I have heard you say that you 
have allowed yourself two more years, in which you are 
still fit to do some work; spend them well, in behalf 


190 ERASMUS 


of the Gospel and the true Christian faith, . . . O 
Erasmus, be on this side, that God may be proud of 
you.” 


It expresses confidence in Erasmus’ power, but at bot- 
tom is the expectation that he will not do all this. 
Diirer had rightly understood Erasmus. 

The struggle abated nowise, least of all at Louvain. 
Latomus, the most dignified and able of Louvain divines, 
had now become one of the most serious opponents of 
Luther and, in so doing, touched Erasmus, too, indirectly. 
To Nicholas of Egmond, the Carmelite, another of Eras- 
mus’ compatriots had been added, as a violent antagonist, 
Vincent Dirks of Haarlem, a Dominican. Erasmus ad- 
dresses himself to the faculty, to defend himself against 
the new attacks, and to explain why he has never written 
against Luther. He will read him, he will soon take up 
something to quiet the tumult. He succeeds in getting 
Aleander, who arrived at Louvain in June, to prohibit 
preaching against him. The Pope still hopes that Alean- 
der will succeed in bringing back Erasmus, with whom 
he is again on friendly terms, to the right track. 

But Erasmus began to consider the only exit which 
was now left to him: to leave Louvain and the Nether- 
lands to regain his menaced independence. The occasion 
to depart had long ago presented itself: the third edition 
of his New Testament called him to Basle once more. 
It would not be a permanent departure, and he pur- 
posed to return to Louvain. On the 28th of October 
(his birthday) he left the town where he had spent four 
difficult years. His chambers in the College of the Lily 
were reserved for him and he left his books behind. On 
the 15th of November he reached Basle. 


ae 


FIRST YEARS OF THE REFORMATION 191 


Soon the rumour spread that out of fear for Aleander 
he had saved himself by flight. But the representation, 
revived again in our days, in spite of Erasmus’ own 
painstaking denial, that Aleander should have cunningly 
and expressly driven him from the Netherlands, is inher- 
ently improbable. So far as the Church was concerned, 
Erasmus would at almost any point be more dangerous 
than at Louvain, in the headquarters of conservatism, 
under immediate control of the strict Burgundian gov- 
ernment, where, it seemed, he could sooner or later be 
pressed into the service of the anti-Lutheran policy. 

It was this contingency, as Dr. Allen has correctly 
pointed out, which he feared and evaded. Not for his 
bodily safety did he emigrate; Erasmus would not have 
been touched; he was far too valuable an asset for such 
measures. It was his mental independence, so dear to 
him above all else, that he felt was threatened; and, to 
safeguard that, he did not return to Louvain. 


¢ 


XVII 
ERASMUS AT BASLE 


BASLE HIS DWELLING-PLACE FOR NEARLY EIGHT YEARS: 
1521-1529—POLITICAL THOUGHT OF ERASMUS—CONCORD 
AND PEACE—ANTI-WAR WRITINGS—OPINIONS CONCERN- 
ING PRINCES AND GOVERNMENT—NEW EDITIONS OF 
SEVERAL FATHERS—THE COLLOQUIA—CONTROVERSIES 
WITH STUNICA, BEDDA, ETC.—_QUARREL WITH HUTTEN— 
EPPENDORFF. 

It is only towards the evening of life that the picture 
of Erasmus acquires the features with which it was to go 
down to posterity. Only at Basle—delivered from the 
troublesome pressure of parties wanting to enlist him, 
transplanted from an environment of haters and oppo- 
nents at Louvain to a circle of friends, kindred spirits, 
. helpers and admirers, emancipated from the courts of 
princes, independent of the patronage of the great, unre- 
mittingly devoting his tremendous energy to the work 
that was dear to him—did he become Holbein’s Eras- 
mus. In those late years he approaches most closely to 
the ideal of his personal life. 

He did not think that there were still fifteen years in 
store for him. Long before, since he became forty years 
old, in 1506, in fact, Erasmus had been in an old-age 
mood. “The last act of the play has begun,” he keeps 
saying, after 1517. 

He now felt practically independent as to money mat- 
ters. Many years had passed before he could say that. 
But peace of mind did not come with competence. It 
never came. He never became truly placid and serene, 


192 


ad 


ERASMUS AT BASLE 193 


as Holbein’s picture seems to represent him. He was 
always too much concerned about what people said or 
thought of him. Even at Basle he did not feel thor- 
oughly at home. He still speaks repeatedly of a removal 
in the near future to Rome, to France, to England, or 
back to the Netherlands. Physical rest, at any rate, 
which was not in him, was granted him by circumstances: 
since for nearly eight years he now remained at Basle, 
and then he lived at Freiburg for six. 

Erasmus at Basle is a man whose ideals of the world 
and society have failed him. What remains of that 
happy expectation of a golden age of peace and light, 
in which he had believed as late as 1517? What of his 
trust in good will and rational insight, in which he wrote 
the Institutio Principis Christiani for the youthful 
Charles V? To Erasmus all the weal of state and society 
had always been merely a matter of personal morality 
and intellectual enlightenment. By recommending and 
spreading those two he at one time thought he had 
introduced the great renovation himself. From the 
moment when he saw that the conflict would lead to an 
exasperated struggle he refused any longer to be any- 
thing but a spectator. As an actor in the great ecclesias- 
tical combat Erasmus had voluntarily left the stage. 

But he does not give up his ideal. “Let us resist,’”’ he 
concludes an Epistle about gospel philosophy, “not by 
taunts and threats, not by force of arms and injustice, 
but by simple discretion, by benefits, by gentleness and 
tolerance.” Towards the close of his life, he prays: “If 
Thou, O God, deignst to renew that Holy Spirit in the 
hearts of all, then also will those external disasters cease. 


194 ERASMUS 


... Bring order to this chaos, Lord Jesus, let thy Spirit 
spread over these waters of sadly troubled dogmas.” 
Concord, peace, sense of duty and kindliness, were all 
valued highly by Erasmus; yet he rarely saw them real- 
ised in practical life. He becomes disillusioned. After 
the short spell of political optimism he never speaks of 
the times any more but in bitter terms—a most criminal 
age, he says—and again, the most unhappy and most 
depraved age imaginable. In vain had he always written 
in the cause of peace: Querela pacis, the complaint of 
peace, the adage Dulce bellum inexpertis, war is sweet to 
those who have not tried it, Oratio de pace et discordia, 
and more still. Erasmus thought rather highly of his 
pacifistic labours: “that polygraph, who never leaves off 
persecuting war by means of his pen,” thus he makes a 
character of the Colloquies designate himself. Accord- 
ing to a tradition noted by Melanchthon, Pope Julius is 
said to have called him before him in connection with his 
advice about the war with Venice,’ and to have remarked 
to him angrily, that he should stop writing on the con- 
cerns of princes: “You do not understand those things!” 
Erasmus had, in spite of a certain innate moderation, 
a wholly non-political mind. He lived too much out- 
side of practical reality, and thought too naively of the 
corrigibility of mankind, to realise the difficulties and 
necessities of government. His ideas about a good ad- 
ministration were extremely primitive, and, as is often 
the case in scholars of a strongly ethical bias, very revo- 
lutionary at bottom, though he never dreamed of drawing 





-1 Melanchthon, Opera, Corpus Reformatorum XII 266 where he refers 
to Querela pacis, which, however, was not written before 1517; vide 
A. 603 and I p. 37.10. 


ERASMUS AT BASLE 195 


the practical inferences. His friendship with political 
and juridical thinkers, as More, Budaeus and Zasius, had 
not changed him. Questions of forms of government, 
law or right, did not exist for him. Economic problems 
he saw in idyllic simplicity. The prince should reign 
gratuitously and impose as few taxes as possible. “The 
good prince has all that loving citizens possess.” The 
unemployed should be simply driven away. We feel in 
closer contact with the world of facts when he enu- 
merates the works of peace for the prince: the cleaning 
of towns, building of bridges, halls, streets, draining of 
pools, shifting of river-beds, the diking and reclamation 
of moors. It is the Netherlander who speaks here, and 
at the same time the man in whom the need of cleansing 
and clearing away is a fundamental trait of character. 
Vague politicians like Erasmus are prone to judge 
princes very severely, since they take them to be respon- 
sible for all wrongs. Erasmus praises them personally, 
but condemns them in general. From the kings of his 
time he had for a long time expected peace in church and 
state. They had disappointed him. But his severe judg- 
ment of princes he derived rather from his classic reading 
than from political experience of his own times. In 
the later editions of the Adagia he often reverts to 
princes, their task and their neglect of duty, without 
ever mentioning special princes. “There are those who 
sow the seeds of dissension between their townships in 
order to fleece the poor unhindered and to satisfy their 
gluttony by the hunger of innocent citizens.” In the 
adage Scarabeus aquilam quaerit he represents the 
prince under the image of the Eagle as the great cruel 
robber and persecutor. In another, Aut regem aut fatuum 


196 ERASMUS 


nasci oportere, and in Dulce bellum inexpertis he utters 
his frequently quoted dictum: “The people found and 
develop towns, the folly of princes devastates them.” 
“The princes conspire with the Pope, and perhaps with 
the Turk, against the happiness of the people,” he writes 
to Colet in 1518. 

He was an academic critic writing from his study. A 
revolutionary purpose was as foreign to Erasmus as it 
was to More when writing the Utopia. “Bad monarchs 
should perhaps be suffered now and then. The remedy 
should not be tried.” It may be doubted whether Eras- 
mus exercised much real influence on his contemporaries 
by means of his diatribes against princes. One would 
fain believe that his ardent love of peace and bitter 
arraignment of the madness of war had some effect. 
They have undoubtedly spread pacific sentiments in the 
broad circles of intellectuals who read Erasmus, but un- 
fortunately the history of the 16th century shows little 
evidence that such sentiments bore fruit in actual prac- 
tice. However this may be, Erasmus’ strength was not 
in these political declamations. He could never be a 
leader of men with their passions and their harsh in- 
terests. 

His life-work lay elsewhere. Now, at Basle, though 
tormented more and more frequently by his painful 
complaint which he had already carried for so many 
years, he could devote himself more fully than ever 
before to the great task he had set himself: the opening 
up of the pure sources of Christianity, the exposition of 
the truth of the Gospel in all the simple comprehensibil- 
ity in which he saw it. In a broad stream flowed the 
editions of the Fathers, of classic authors, the new edi- 


ERASMUS AT BASLE 197 


tions of the New Testament, of the Adagia, of his own 
Letters, together with Paraphrases of the New Testa- 
ment, Commentaries on Psalms, and a number of new 
theological, moral and philological treatises. In 1522 he 
was ill for months on end; yet in that year Arnobius 
and the third edition of the New Testament succeeded 
Cyprian whom he had already annotated at Louvain and 
edited in 1520, closely followed by Hilary in 1523 and 
next by a new edition of Jerome in 1524. Later appeared 
Irenaeus, 1526; Ambrose, 1527; Augustine, 1528-9, and 
a Latin translation of Chrysostom in 1530. The rapid 
succession of these comprehensive works proves that the 
work was done, as Erasmus always worked: hastily, with 
an extraordinary power of concentration and a surpris- 
ing command of his mnemonic faculty, but without 
severe criticism and the painful accuracy that modern 
philology requires in such editions. 

Neither the polemical Erasmus nor the witty humor- 
- ist had been lost in the erudite divine and the disillu- 
sioned reformer. ‘The paper-warrior we would further 
gladly have dispensed with, but not the humorist, for 
many treasures of literature. But the two are linked 
inseparably. The Colloquies prove this. 

What was said about the Moria may be repeated 
here: if in the literature of the world only the Colloquies 
and the Moria have remained alive, that choice of his- 
tory is right. Not in the sense that in literature only 
Erasmus’ pleasantest, lightest and most readable works 
were preserved, whereas the ponderous theological eru- 
dition was silently relegated to the shelves of libraries. 
It was indeed Erasmus’ best work that was kept alive 
in the Moria and the Colloquies. With these his spar- 


198 ERASMUS 


kling wit has charmed the world. If only we had space 
here to assign to the Erasmus of the Colloquies his just 
and lofty place in that brilliant constellation of 16th 
century followers of Democritus: Rabelais, Ariosto, 
Montaigne, Cervantes and Ben Jonson! 

When Erasmus gave the Colloquies their definite form 
at Basle, they had already had a long and curious gene- 
sis. At first they had been no more than Familiarium 
Colloquiorum Formulae, models of colloquial Latin con- 
versation, written at Paris before 1500, for the use 
of his pupils. Augustine Caminade, the shabby friend 
who was fond of living on young Erasmus’ genius, had 
collected them and had turned them to advantage within 
a limited compass. He had long since been dead, when 
one Lambert Hollonius of Liege sold the manuscript that 
he had got from Caminade to Froben at Basle. Beatus 
Rhenanus, although then already Erasmus’ trusted friend, 
had it printed at once without the latter’s knowledge. 
That was in 1518. Erasmus was justly offended at it, 
the more as the book was full of slovenly blunders and 
solecisms. So he at once prepared a better edition him- 
self, published by Maertensz at Louvain in 1519. At 
that time the work really contained but one true dia- 
logue, the nucleus of the later Convivium profanum. 
The rest were formulae of etiquette and short talks. 
But already in this form it was, apart from its usefulness 
to Latinists, so full of happy wit and humorous inven- 
tion that it became very popular. Even before 1522 it 
had appeared in 25 editions, mostly reprints, at Antwerp, 
Paris, Strassburg, Cologne, Cracow, Deventer, Leipsic, 
London, Vienna, Mayence. 

At Basle Erasmus himself revised an edition which was 


ERASMUS AT BASLE 199 


published in March, 1522, by Froben, dedicated to the 
latter’s six-year-old son, the author’s godchild, Johannes 
Erasmius Froben. Soon after he did more than revise. 
In 1523 and 1524 first ten new dialogues, afterwards 
four, and again six, were added to the Formulae, and at 
last in 1526 the title was changed to Familiarium Collo- 
quiorum Opus. It remained dedicated to the boy Froben 
and went on growing with each new edition: a rich and 
motley collection of dialogues, each a masterpiece of 
literary form, well-knit, spontaneous, convincing, unsur- 
passed in lightness, vivacity and fluent Latin; each one 
a finished one-act play. From that year on, the stream 
of editions and translations flowed almost uninterrupt- 
edly for two centuries. 

Erasmus’ mind had lost nothing of its acuteness and 
freshness when, so many years after the Moria, he again 
set foot in the field of satire. As to form the Colloquies 
are less confessedly satirical than the Moria. With its 
telling subject, the Praise of Folly, the latter at once 
introduces itself as a satire: whereas, at first sight, the 
Colloquies might seem to be mere innocent genre-pieces. 
But as to the contents, they are more satirical, at least 
more directly so. The Moria, as a satire, is philosophical 
and general; the Colloquia are up-to-date and special. 
At the same time they combine more the positive and 
the negative elements. In the Moria Erasmus’ own 
ideal dwells unexpressed behind the representation; in 
the Colloquia he continually and clearly puts it in the 
foreground. On this account they form, notwithstand- 
ing all the jests and mockery, a profoundly serious moral 
treatise and are closely akin to the Enchiridion militis 
Christiani. What Erasmus really demanded of the world 


200 ERASMUS 


and of mankind, how he pictured to himself that pas- 
sionately desired, purified Christian society of good 
morals, fervent faith, simplicity and moderation, kindli- 
ness, toleration and peace—this we can nowhere else find 
so clearly and well-expressed as in the Colloquia. In 
these last fifteen years of his life Erasmus resumes, by 
means of a series of moral-dogmatic disquisitions, the 
topics he broached in the Enchiridion: the exposition of 
simple, general Christian conduct; untrammeled and 
natural ethics. That is his message of redemption. It 
eame to many out of Hxomologesis, de Hsu carnium, 
Lingua, Institutio christiani matrimoni, Vidua christi- 
ana, Ecclesiastes. But, to far larger numbers, the 
message was contained in the Colloquies. 

The Colloquia gave rise to much more hatred and 
eontest than the Moria, and not without reason, for in 
them Erasmus attacked persons. He allowed himself 
the pleasure of ridiculing his Louvain antagonists. Lee 
had already been introduced as a sycophant and brag- 
gart into the edition of 1519, and when the quarrel was 
assuaged, in 1522, the reference was expunged. Vincent 
Dirks was caricatured in “The Funeral” (1526) as a 
eovetous friar, who extorts from the dying testaments in 
favour of hisorder. Heremained. Later sarcastic obser- 
vations were added about Beda and numbers of others. 
The adherents of Oecolampadius took a figure with a long 
nose in the Colloquies for their leader; “Oh, no,” replied 
Erasmus, “it is meant for quite another person.” Hence- 
forth all those who were at loggerheads with Erasmus, 
and they were many, ran the risk of being pilloried in 
the Colloquia. It was no wonder that this work, espe- 


ERASMUS AT BASLE 201 


cially with its scourging mockery of the monastic orders, 
became the object of controversy. 


Erasmus never emerged from his polemics. He was, 
no doubt, serious when he said that, in his heart, he 
abhorred and had never desired them; but his caustic 
mind often got the better of his heart, and having once 
begun to quarrel he undoubtedly enjoyed giving his 
mockery the rein and wielding his facile dialectic pen. 
For understanding his personality it is unnecessary here 
to deal at large with all those fights on paper. Only the 
most important ones need be mentioned. 

Since 1516 a pot had been boiling for Erasmus in 
Spain. A theologian of the University at Alcala, Diego 
Lopez Zuniga, or, in Latin, Stunica, had been preparing 
Annotations to the edition of the New Testament: “a 
second Lee,” said Erasmus. At first Cardinal Ximenes 
had prohibited the publication, but in 1520, after his 
death, the storm broke. For some years Stunica kept 
persecuting Erasmus with his criticism, to the latter’s 
great vexation; at last there followed a rapprochement, 
probably as Erasmus became more conservative, and a 
kindly attitude on the part of Stunica. 

No less long and violent was the quarrel with the 
syndic of the Sorbonne, Noél Bedier or Beda, which 
began in 1522. The Sorbonne was prevailed upon to 
condemn several of Erasmus’ dicta as heretical in 1526. 
The effort of Beda to implicate Erasmus in the trial 
of Louis de Berquin, who had translated the condemned 
writings and who was eventually burned at the stake for 
faith’s sake, 1529, made the matter still more disagree- 
able for Erasmus. 


202 ERASMUS 


It is clear enough that, both at Paris and at Louvain in 
the circles of the theological faculties the chief cause of 
exasperation was in the Colloquia. Egmondanus and 
Vincent Dirks did not forgive Erasmus for having acridly 
censured their station and their personalities. 

More courteous than the aforementioned polemics was 
the fight with a high-born Italian, Alberto Pio, prince 
of Carpi; acrid and bitter was one with a group of 
Spanish monks, who brought the Inquisition to bear 
upon him. in Spain “Erasmistas” was the name of 
those who inclined to more liberal conceptions of the 
creed. 

In this way the matter accumulated for the volume 
of Erasmus’ works which contains, according to his own 
arrangement, all his Apologiae: not “excuses,” but 
“vindications.” ‘Miserable man that I am; they just 
fill a volume,” exclaimed Erasmus. 

Two of his polemics merit a somewhat closer exam- 
ination: that with Ulrich von Hutten and that with 
Luther. 

Hutten, knight and humanist, the enthusiastic herald 
of a national-German uplift, the ardent hater of papacy 
and supporter of Luther, was certainly a hot-head and 
perhaps somewhat of a muddle-head. He had applauded 
Erasmus when the latter still seemed to be the coming 
man and had afterwards besought him to take Luther’s 
side. Erasmus had soon discovered that this noisy par- 
tisan might compromise him. Had not one of Hutten’s 
rash satires been ascribed to him, Erasmus? There 
came a time when Hutten could no longer abide Eras- 
mus. His knightly instinct reacted on the very weak- 
nesses of Erasmus’ character: the fear of committing 


ERASMUS AT BASLE . 203 


himself and the inclination to repudiate a supporter in 
time of danger. Erasmus knew that weakness himself: 
“Not all have strength enough for martyrdom,” he 
writes to Richard Pace in 1521. “I fear that I shall, in 
case it results in a tumult, follow St. Peter’s example.” 
But this acknowledgment does not discharge him from 
the burden of Hutten’s reproaches which he flung at him 
in fiery language in 1523. In this quarrel Erasmus’ own 
fame pays the penalty of his fault. For nowhere does 
he show himself so undignified and puny as in that “Sponge 
against Hutten’s mire,” which the latter did not live to 
read. Hutten, disillusioned and forsaken, died at an 
early age in 1523, and Erasmus did not scruple to pub- 
lish the venomous pamphlet against his former friend 
after his demise. 

Hutten, however, was avenged upon Erasmus living. 
One of his adherents, Henry of Eppendorff, inherited 
Hutten’s bitter disgust with Erasmus and persecuted him 
-for years. Getting hold of one of Erasmus’ letters in 
which he was denounced, he continually threatened him 
with an action for defamation of character. Eppen- 
dorff’s hostility so thoroughly exasperated Erasmus that 
he fancied he could detect his machinations and spies 
everywhere even after the actual persecution had long 
ceased. 


XVIII 
CONTROVERSY WITH LUTHER AND GROWING 
CONSERVATISM 


ERASMUS PERSUADED TO WRITE AGAINST LUTHER—D#2 
LIBERO ARBITRIO: 1524-LUTHER’S ANSWER: DE SERVO 
ARBITRIO—ERASMUS’ INDEFINITENESS CONTRASTED 
WITH LUTHER’S EXTREME RIGOUR—ERASMUS HENCE- 
FORTH ON THE SIDE OF CONSERVATISM—THE BISHOP 
OF BASLE AND OECOLAMPADIUS—ERASMUS’ HALF- 
HEARTED DOGMATICS: CONFESSION, CEREMONIES, WOR- 
SHIP OF THE SAINTS, EUCHARIST—INSTITUTIO CHRIS- 
TIANI MATRIMONII: 1523-HE FEELS SURROUNDED BY 
ENEMIES. 

At length Erasmus was led, in spite of all, to do what 
he had always tried to avoid: he wrote against 
Luther. But it did not in the least resemble the “geste” 
Erasmus at one time contemplated, in the cause of peace 
in Christendom and uniformity of faith, to call a halt to 
the impetuous Luther, and thereby to recall the world 
to its senses. In the great act of the Reformation their 
polemics were merely an after-play. Not Erasmus 
alone was disillusioned and tired,—Luther too was past 
his heroic prime, circumscribed by conditions, forced 
into the world of affairs, a disappointed man. 

Erasmus had wished to persevere in his resolution to 
remain a spectator of the great tragedy. “If, as appears 
from the wonderful success of Luther’s cause, God wills 
all this,’—thus did Erasmus reason—“and He has per- 
haps judged such a drastic surgeon as Luther necessary 
for the corruption of these times, then it is not my busi- 
ness to withstand him.” But he was not left in peace. 
While he went on protesting that he had nothing to do 


204 


CONTROVERSY WITH LUTHER 205 


with Luther and differed widely from him, the de- 
fenders of the old Church adhered to the standpoint 
urged as early as 1520 by Nicholas of Egmond before 
the rector of Louvain: “So long as he refuses to write 
against Luther, we take him to be a Lutheran.” So 
matters stood. “That you are looked upon as a Lutheran 
here is certain,” Vives writes to him from the Nether- 
lands in 1522. 

Ever stronger became the pressure to write against 
‘Luther. From Henry VIII came a call, communicated 
by Erasmus’ old friend Tunstall, from George of Saxony, 
from Rome itself, whence Pope Adrian VI, his old pa- 
tron, had urged him shortly before his death. 

Erasmus thought he could refuse no longer. He tried 
some dialogues in the style of the Colloquies, but did 
not get on with them; and probably they would not have 
pleased those who were desirous of enlisting his services. 
Between Luther and Erasmus himself there had been no 
personal correspondence, since the former had promised 
him, in 1520: “Well, then, Erasmus, I shall not mention 
your name again.” Now that Erasmus had prepared 
to attack Luther, however, there came an epistle from > 
the latter, written April 15th, 1524, in which the re 
former, in his turn, requested Erasmus in his own words: 
“Please remain now what you have always professed 
yourself desirous of being: a mere spectator of our 
tragedy.” There is a ring of ironical contempt in 
Luther’s words, but Erasmus called the letter “rather 
humane; I had not the courage to reply with equal 
humanity, because of the sycophants.” 

In order to be able to combat Luther with a clear 
conscience Erasmus had naturally to choose a point on 


206 ERASMUS 


which he differed from Luther in his heart. It was not’ 
one of the more superficial parts of the Church’s struc- 
ture. For these he either, with Luther, cordially re y 
jected, such as ceremonies, observances, fasting, etc.,. 
or, though more moderately than Luther, he had his! 
doubts about them, as the sacraments or the primacy 
of St. Peter. So he naturally came to the point where 
the deepest gulf yawned between their natures, between 
their conceptions of the essence of faith, and thus to the” 
central and eternal problem of good and evil, guilt and 
compulsion, liberty and bondage, God and man. Luther 
confessed in his reply that here indeed the vital point 
had been touched. 

De Libero Arbitrio diatribe, ie. A Disquisition 
upon Free Will, appeared in September, 1524. Was 
Erasmus qualified to write about such a subject? In 
conformity with his method and with his evident pur- 
pose to vindicate authority and tradition, this time, 
‘Erasmus developed the argument that Scripture teaches, 
doctors affirm, philosophers prove, and human reason 
testifies man’s will to be free. Without acknowledg- 
ment of free will the terms of God’s justice and God’s 
mercy remain without meaning. What would be the 
sense of the teachings, reproofs, admonitions of Scrip- 
ture (Timothy III) if all happened according to mere 
and inevitable necessity? To what purpose is obedience 
praised, if for good and evil works we are equally but 
tools to God, as the hatchet to the carpenter? And if 
this were so, it would be dangerous to reveal such a 
doctrine to the multitude, for morality is dependent on 
the consciousness of freedom. 

Luther received the treatise of his antagonist with 


CONTROVERSY WITH LUTHER 207 


disgust and contempt. In writing his reply, however, 
he suppressed these feelings outwardly and observed the 
rules of courtesy. But his inward anger is revealed in 
the contents itself of De Servo Arbitrio, On the will not ~ 
free. For here he really did what Erasmus had just 
reproached him with,—trying to heal a dislocated mem- 
ber by tugging at it in the opposite direction. More 
fiercely than ever before, his formidable boorish mind 
drew the startling inferences of his burning faith. With-/ 
out any reserve he now accepted all the extremes of : 
absolute determimism. In order to confute indeter-— 
minism in explicit terms, he was now forced to have. 
recourse to those primitive metaphors of exalted 
faith striving to express the inexpressible: God’s two 
wills, which do not coincide, God’s “eternal hatred of 
mankind, a hatred not only on account of demerits and 
the works of free will, but a hatred that existed even 
before the world was created,” and that metaphor of 
the human will, which, as a riding beast, stands in the 
middle between God and the devil and which is mounted 
by one or the other without being able to move 
towards either of the two contending riders. 

If anywhere, Luther’s doctrine in De Servo Arbitrio 
means a recrudescence of faith and a straining of relig- 
ious conceptions. 

But it was Luther who here stood on the rockbed of 
a profound and mystic faith in which the absolute con- 
science of the eternal pervades all. In him all concep- 
tions, like dry straw, were consumed in the glow of God’s 
majesty, for him each human co-operation to attain to 
salvation was a profanation of God’s glory. Erasmus’ 
mind after all did not truly live in the ideas which were 


ee 


208 ERASMUS 


here disputed, of sin and grace, of redemption and the 
glory of God as the final cause of all that is. 

Was, then, Erasmus’ cause in all respects inferior? 
Was Luther right at the core? Perhaps. Dr. Murray 


| rightly reminds us of Hegel’s saying that tragedy is not 


the conflict between right and wrong, but the conflict 
=) oO) 


between right and right. The combat of Luther and 


Erasmus proceeded beyond the point at which our judg- 
ment is forced to halt and has to accept an equivalence, 
nay a compatibility of affirmation and negation. And 
this fact, that they here were fighting with words and 
metaphors in a sphere beyond that of what may be 


known and expressed, was understood by Erasmus. 


Erasmus, the man of the fine shades, for whom ideas 
eternally blended into each other and interchanged, 
called a Proteus by Luther; Luther the man of over- 
emphatic expression about all matters. The Dutchman, 
who sees the sea, was opposed to the German who looks 
out on mountain tops. , 

“This is quite true that we cannot speak of God but 
with inadequate words.” “Many problems should be 
deferred, not to the cecumenical council, but till the 
time when, the glass and the darkness having been taken 
away, we shall see God face to face.” “What is free of 
error?” “There are in sacred literature certain sanc- 
tuaries into which God has not willed that we should 
penetrate further.” 

The Catholic Church had on the point of free will 
reserved to itself some slight proviso, left a little elbow- 
room to the consciousness of human liberty under grace. 
Erasmus conceived that liberty in a considerably broader 





CONTROVERSY WITH LUTHER 209 


spirit. Luther absolutely denied it. The opinion of 
contemporaries was at first too much dominated by their 
participation in the great struggle as such: they ap- 
plauded Erasmus, because he struck boldly at Luther, or 
the other way about, according to their sympathies. Not 
only Vives applauded Erasmus, but also more orthodox 
Catholics such as Sadolet. The German humanists, un- 
willing, for the most part, to break with the ancient 
Church, were moved by Erasmus’ attack to turn their 
backs still more upon Luther: Mutianus, Zasius, and 
Pirkheimer. Even Melanchthon inclined to Erasmus’ 
standpoint. Others, like Capito, once a zealous sup- 
porter, now washed their hands of him. 

Soon Calvin with the iron cogency of his argument was 
completely to take Luther’s side. 

It is worth while to quote the opinion of a con- 
temporary Catholic scholar about the relations of 
Erasmus and Luther. “Erasmus,” says F. X. Kiefl, . 
“with his concept of free, unspoiled human nature was 
intrinsically much more foreign to the Church than 
Luther. He only combated it, however, with haughty 
scepticism: for which reason Luther with subtle psychol- 
ogy upbraided him for liking to speak of the shortcom- 
ings and the misery of the Church of Christ in such a 
way that his readers could not help laughing, instead of 
bringing his charges, with deep sighs, as beseemed before 
God.” 

The Ayperaspistes, a voluminous treatise, in which 
Erasmus again addressed Luther, was nothing but an 
epilogue, which need not be discussed here at length. 





1 Luther’s religidse Psyche, Hochland XV, 1917, p. 21. 


210 ERASMUS 


Erasmus had thus, at last, openly taken sides. For, 
apart from the dogmatical point at issue itself, the most 
important part about De Libero Arbitrio was that in it 
he had expressly turned against the individual religious 
conceptions and had spoken in favour of authority and 
tradition of the Church. He always regarded himself as 
a Catholic. “Neither death nor life shall draw me from 
the communion of the Catholic Church,” he writes in 
1522, and in the Hyperaspistes in 1526: “I have never 
been an apostate from the Catholic Church. I know 
that in this Church, which you call the Papist Church, 
there are many who displease me, but such I also see in 
your Church. One bears more easily the evils to which 
one is accustomed. Therefore I bear with this Church, 
until I shall see a better, and it cannot help bearing with 
me, until I shall myself be better. And he does not sail 
badly who steers a middle course between two several 
evils.” 

But was it possible to keep to that course? On either 
side people turned away from him. “I who, formerly, 
in countless letters was addressed as thrice great hero, 
Prince of letters, Sun of studies, Maintainer of true 
theology, am now ignored, or represented in quite dif- 
ferent colours,” he writes. How many of his old friends 
and congenial spirits had already gone! 

A sufficient number remained, however, who thought 
and hoped as Erasmus did. His untiring pen still con- 
tinued to propagate, especially by means of his letters, 
the moderating and purifying influence of his mind 
throughout all the countries of Europe. Scholars, high 
church dignitaries, nobles, students, and civil magis- 
trates were his correspondents. ‘The bishop of Basle 


CONTROVERSY WITH LUTHER 211 


himself, Christopher of Utenheim, was a man after Eras- 
mus’ heart. A zealous advocate of humanism, he had 
attempted, as early as 1503, to reform the clergy of his 
bishopric by means of synodal statutes, without much 
success; afterwards he had called scholars like Oecolam- 
padius, Capito and Wimpheling to Basle. That was be- 
fore the great struggle began, which was soon to carry 
away Oecolampadius and Capito much further than the 
bishop of Basle or Erasmus approved. In 1522 Erasmus 
addressed the bishop in a treatise De interdicto esu car- 
nium, on the prohibition of eating meat. This was one 
of the last occasions on which he directly opposed the 
established order. 

The bishop, however, could no longer control the 
movement. A considerable number of the commonalty 
of Basle and the majority of the council were already on 
the side of radical Reformation. About a year after 
Erasmus, John Oecolampadius, whose first residence at 
Basle had also coincided with his (at that time he had 
helped Erasmus with Hebrew for the edition of the New 
Testament), returned to the town with the intention of 
organising the resistance to the old order there. In 1523 
the council appointed him professor of Holy Scripture 
in the University; at the same time four Catholic pro- 
fessors lost their places. He succeeded in obtaining 
general permission for unlicensed preaching. Soon a 
far more hot-headed agitator, the impetuous Guillaume 
Farel, also arrived for active work at Basle and in the 
environs. He is the man who will afterwards reform 
Geneva and persuade Calvin to stay there. 

Though at first Oecolampadius began with caution to 
introduce novelties into the church service, Erasmus saw 


212 ERASMUS 


these innovations with alarm. Especially the fanati- 
cism of Farel, whom he hated bitterly. It was these 
men who retarded what he still desired and thought 
possible: a compromise. His lambent spirit, which 
never fully decided in favour of a definite opinion, had, 
with regard to most of the disputed points, gradually 
fixed on a_ half-conservative midway standpoint, by 
means of which, without denying his deepest convic- 
tion, he tried to remain faithful to the Church. In 
1524 he had expressed his sentiments about confession 
in the treatise Hxromologesis, or the way to confess. 
He accepts it halfway: if not instituted by Christ, or 
the Apostles, it was, in any case, by the Fathers. It 
should be piously preserved. Confession is of excel- 
lent use, though, at times, a great evil. In this way he 
tries “to admonish either party,” “neither to agree 
with nor to assail” the deniers, “though inclining to the 
side of the believers.” 

In the long list of his polemics he gradually finds op- 
portunities to define his views somewhat; circumstan- 
tially, for imstance, in the answers to Alberto Pio, of 
1525 and 1529. Consequently it is always done in the 
form of an apology, whether he is attacked for the Col- 
loquia, or the Moria, Jerome, the Paraphrases or any- 
thing else. At last he recapitulates his views to some 
extent in De amabili Ecclesiae concordia, On the Ami- 
able Concord of the Church, of 1533, which, however, 
ranks hardly any more among his reformatory en- 
deavours. 

On most points Erasmus succeeds in finding moderate 
and conservative formulae. Even with regard to cere- 
monies he no longer merely rejects. He finds a kind 


CONTROVERSY WITH LUTHER 213 


word to say even for fasting, which he had always ab- 
horred, for the veneration of relics and for Church fes- 
tivals. He does not want to abolish the worship of the 
Saints: it no longer entails danger of idolatry. He 
is even willing to admit the images: “He who takes the 
imagery out of life deprives it of its highest pleasure; 
we often discern more in images than we conceive from 
the written word.” Regarding Christ’s substantial pres- 
ence in the sacrament of the altar he holds fast to the 
Catholic view, but without fervour, only on the ground 
of the Church’s consensus, and because he cannot believe 
that Christ, who is truth and love, would have suffered 
his bride to cling so long to so horrid an error as to 
worship a crust of bread instead of him. But for these 
reasons he might, at need, accept Oecolampadius’ view. 

From the period at Basle dates one of the purest and 
most beneficent moral treatises of Erasmus’, the Jnstitu- 
tio Christiant matrimonii, On Christian Marriage, of 
1526, written for Catherine of Aragon, queen of Eng- 
land, quite in the spirit of the Enchiridion, save for a 
certain diffuseness betraying old age. Later follows De 
Vidua christiana, the Christian Widow, for Mary of 
Hungary, which is as impeccable but less interesting. 

All this did not disarm the defenders of the old 
Church. They held fast to the clear picture of Erasmus’ 
creed that arose from the Colloquies and that could not 
be called purely Catholic. There it appeared only too 
clearly that however much Erasmus might desire to 
leave the letter intact, his heart was not in the convic- 
tions which were vital to the Catholic Church. Conse- 
quently the Colloquies were later, when Erasmus’ works 
were expurgated, placed on the index in the lump, with 


214 ERASMUS 


the Moria and a few other works. The rest is “caute 
legenda,” to be read with caution. Much was rejected 
of the Annotations to the New Testament, of the Para- 
phrases and the Apologiae, very little of the Enchiridion, 
of the Ratio verae theologiae, and even of the Ezomo- 
logesis. But this was after the fight against the living 
Erasmus had long been over. 

So long as he remained at Basle, or elsewhere, as the 
centre of a large intellectual group whose force could not 
be estimated, just because it did not stand out as a 
party,—it was not known what turn he might yet take, 
what influence his mind might yet have on the Church. 
He remained a king of minds in his quiet study. The 
hatred that was felt for him, the watching of all his 
words and actions, were of a nature as only falls to the 
lot of the acknowledged great. The chorus of enemies 
who laid the fault of the whole Reformation on Erasmus 
was not silenced. “He laid the eggs which Luther and 
Zwingli have hatched.” With vexation Erasmus quoted 
ever new specimens of narrow-minded, malicious and 
stupid controversy. At Constance there lived a doctor 
who had hung his portrait on the wall merely to spit at 
it as often as he passed it. Erasmus jestingly compares 
his fate to that of Saint Cassianus who was stabbed 
to death by his pupils with pencils. Had he not 
been pierced to the quick for many years by the pens 
and tongues of countless people and did he not live in 
that torment without death bringing the end? The 
keen sensitiveness to opposition was seated very deeply 
with Erasmus. And he could never forbear irritating 
others into opposing him. 


XTX 
AT WAR WITH HUMANISTS AND REFORMERS 


ERASMUS TURNS AGAINST THE EXCESSES OF HUMANISM: 
ITS PAGANISM AND PEDANTIC CLASSICISM—CICERONI- 
ANUS: 1528-IT BRINGS HIM NEW ENEMIES—THE REFOR- 
MATION CARRIED THROUGH AT BASLE—HE EMIGRATES 
TO FREIBURG: 1529-HIS VIEW CONCERNING THE RE- 
SULTS OF THE REFORMATION. 

Nothing is more characteristic of the independence 
which Erasmus reserved for himself regarding all move- 
ments of his time than the fact that he also jained issue 
in the camp of the humanists. In 1528 there were pub- 
lished by Froben (the chief of the firm of John Froben 
had just died) two dialogues in one volume from 
Erasmus’ hand: one about the correct pronunciation of 
Latin and Greek, and one with the title Ciceronianus or, 
on the Best Diction, i.e. in writing and speaking Latin. 
Either was a proof that Erasmus had lost nothing of his 
liveliness and wit. The former treatise was purely philo- 
logic, and as such has had great influence; the other 
was satirical as well. It had a long history. 

Erasmus had always regarded classical studies as the 
panacea of civilisation, provided they were made ser- 
viceable to pure Christianity. His sincere ethical feeling 
made him recoil from the obscenity of a Poggio and the 
immorality of the early Italian humanists. At the same 
time his delicate and natural taste told him that a 
pedantic and servile imitation of antique models could 
never produce the desired result. Erasmus knew Latin 


215 


216 ERASMUS 


too well to be strictly classical; his Latin was alive and 
required freedom. In his early works we find taunts 
about the over-precise Latin purists: one had declared 
newly found fragment of Cicero to be thoroughly bar- 
baric; “among all sorts of authors none are so insuffer- 
able to me as those apes of Cicero.” 

In spite of the great expectations he cherished of 
classical studies for pure Christianity, he saw one 
danger: “that under the cloak of reviving ancient litera- 
ture paganism tries to rear its head, as there are those 
among Christians who acknowledge Christ only in name 
but inwardly breathe heathenism.” ‘This he writes in 
1517 to Capito. In Italy scholars devote themselves too 
exclusively and in too pagan guise to bonae literae. He 
considered it his special task to assist in bringing it about 
that those bonae literae “which with the Italians have 
thus far been almost pagan, shall get used to speaking of 
Christ.” 

How it must have vexed Erasmus that in Italy of all 
countries he was, at the same time and in one breath, 
charged with heresy and questioned in respect to his 
knowledge and integrity as a scholar. Italians accused 
him of plagiary and trickery. He complained of it to 
Aleander, who, he thought, had a hand in it. 

In a letter of the 13th of October, 1527, to a professor 
at Toledo, we find the “ébauche” of the Ciceronianus. 
In addition to the haters of classic studies for the sake 
of orthodox belief, writes Erasmus, “lately another and 
new sort of enemies has broken from their ambush. 
These are troubled that the bonae literae speak of 
Christ, as though nothing can be elegant but what is 
pagan. To their ears Jupiter optimus maximus sounds 


HUMANISTS AND REFORMERS 217 


more pleasant than Jesus Christus redemptor mundi, 
and patres conscripti more agreeable than sancir 
apostoli, ... They account it a greater dishonour to be 
no Ciceronian than no Christian, as if Cicero, if he 
should now come to life again, would not speak of 
Christian things in other words than in his time he spoke 
of his own religion! . . . What is the sense of this hate- 
ful swaggering with the name Ciceronian? I will tell you 
briefly, in your ear. With that pearl-powder they cover 
the paganism that is dearer to them than the glory of 
Christ.” To Erasmus Cicero’s style is by no means the 
ideal one. He prefers something more solid, succinct, 
vigorous, less polished, more manly. He who sometimes 
has to write a book in a day has no time to polish his 
style, often not even to read it over. . . . “What do 
I care for an empty dish of words, ten words here and 
there mumped from Cicero: I want all Cicero’s spirit.” 
These are apes at whom one may laugh, for far more 
serious than these things are the tumults of the so-called 
new Gospel, to which he next proceeds in this letter. 
And so, in the midst of all his polemics and bitter 
vindication, he allowed himself once more the pleasure 
of giving the reins to his love of scoffing, but, as in the 
Moria and Colloquia, ennobled by an almost passionate 
sincerity of Christian disposition and a natural sense of 
measure. The Ciceronianus is a masterpiece of ready, 
many-sided knowledge, of convincing eloquence, and of 
easy handling of a wealth of arguments. With splendid, 
quiet and yet lively breadth flows the long conversation 
between Bulephorus, representing Erasmus’ opinions, 
Hypologus, the interested inquirer, and Nosoponus, the 


218 ERASMUS 


zealous Ciceronian, who, to preserve a perfect purity of 
mind, breakfasts off ten currants. 

Erasmus in drawing Nosoponus had evidently, in the 
main, alluded to one who could no longer reply: Chris- 
topher Longolius, who had died in 1522. 

The core of the Ciceronianus is where Erasmus points 
out the danger to Christian faith of a too zealous clas- 
sicism. He exclaims urgently: “It is paganism, believe 
me, Nosoponus, it is paganism that charms our ear and 
our soul in such things. We are Christians in name 
alone.” Why does a classic proverb sound better to us 
than a quotation from the bible: “corchorum inter 
olera,” “chick-weed among the vegetables,” better than 
“Saul among the prophets”? As a sample of the ab- 
surdity of Ciceronianism, he gives a translation of a dog- 
matic sentence in classical language: “Optimi maximique. 
Jovis interpres ac filius, servator, rex, juxta vatum re- 
sponsa, ex Olympo devolavit in terras,” for: Jesus Christ, 
the Word and the Son of the eternal Father, came into 
the world according to the prophets. Most humanists 
wrote indeed in that style. 

Was Erasmus aware that he here attacked his own 
past? After all, was it not exactly the same thing which 
he had done, to the indignation of his opponents, when 
translating Logos by Sermo instead of by Veum? 
Had he not himself desired that in the church hymns the 
metre should be corrected, not to mention his own 
classical odes and paeans to Mary and the saints? And 
was his warning against the partiality for classic prov- 
erbs and turns applicable to anything more than to the 
Adagia? 

We here see the aged Erasmus on the path of reaction 


HUMANISTS AND REFORMERS 219 


which might eventually have led him far from human- 
ism. In his combat with humanistic purism he fore- 
shadows a Christian puritanism. 

As always his mockery procured him a new flood of 
invectives. Bembo and Sadolet, the masters of pure 
Latin, could afford to smile at it, but the impetuous 
Julius Caesar Scaliger violently inveighed against him, 
especially to avenge Longolius’ memory. Erasmus’ per- 
petual feeling of being persecuted got fresh food: he 
again thought that Aleander was at the bottom of it. 
“The Italians set the imperial court against me,” he 
writes in 1530. A year later all is quiet again. He writes 
jestingly: “Upon my word I am going to change my 
style, after Budaeus’ model and to become a Ciceronian 
according to the example of Sadolet and Bembo.” But 
even near the close of his life he was engaged in a 
new contest with Italians, because he had hurt their 
national pride; “they rage at me on all sides with slan- 
derous libels, as at the enemy of Italy and Cicero.” 


There were, as he had said himself, other difficulties 
touching him more closely. Conditions at Basle had for 
years been developing in a direction which distressed 
and alarmed him. When he established himself there 
in 1521, it might still have seemed to him as if 
the bishop, old Christopher of Utenheim, a great admirer 
of Erasmus and a man after his heart, would succeed in 
effecting a reformation at Basle, as he desired it; abol- 
ishing acknowledged abuses, but remaining within the 
fold of the Church. In that very year, 1521, however, 
the emancipation of the municipality from the bishop’s 
power—it had been in progress since Basle, in 150], 


220 ERASMUS 


had joined the Swiss Confederacy,—was consummated. 
Henceforth the council was number one, now no longer 
exclusively made up of aristocratic elements. In vain 
did the bishop ally himself with his colleagues of Con- 
stance and Lausanne to maintain Catholicism. In the 
town the new creed got more and more the upper hand. 
When, however, in 1525, it had come to open tumults 
against the Catholic service, the council became more 
cautious and tried to reform more heedfully. 

Oecolampadius desired this, too. Relations between 
him and Erasmus were precarious. Erasmus him- 
self had at one time directed the religious thought 
of the impulsive, sensitive, restless young man. When he 
had, in 1520, suddenly sought refuge in a convent, he 
had expressly justified that step towards Erasmus, the 
condemner of binding vows. And now they saw each 
other again, at Basle in 1522: Oecolampadius having left 
the monastery, a convinced adherent and apostle of the 
new doctrine; Erasmus, the great spectator which he 
wished to be. Erasmus treated his old coadjutor coolly, 
and as the latter progressed, retreated more and more. 
Yet he kept steering a middle course and in 1525 gave 
some moderate advice to the council, which meanwhile 
had turned more Catholic again. 

The old bishop, who for some years had no longer 
resided in his town requested, in 1527, the chapter to re- 
lieve him of his office, and died shortly afterwards. 
Then events moved very quickly. After Bern had, 
meanwhile, reformed itself in 1528, Oecolampadius de- 
manded a decision also for Basle. Since the close of 
1528 the town had been on the verge of civil war. A 
popular rising put an end to the resistance of the Coun- 


HUMANISTS AND REFORMERS 221 


cil and cleared it of Catholic members; and in February, 
1529, the old service was prohibited, the images were 
removed from the churches, the convents abolished, and 
the University suspended. Oecolampadius became the 
first minister in the “Miinster” and leader of the Basle 
church, for which he soon drew up a reformatory ordi- 
nance. The new bishop remained at Porrentruy, and the 
chapter removed to Freiburg. 

The moment of departure had now come for Erasmus. 
His position at Basle in 1529 somewhat resembled, but 
in a reversed sense, the one at Louvain in 1521. Then 
the Catholics wanted to avail themselves of his services 
against Luther, now the Evangelicals would fain have 
kept him at Basle. For his name was still as a banner. 
His presence would strengthen the position of reformed 
Basle; on the one hand, because, as people reasoned, if 
he were not of the same mind as the reformers, he would 
have left the town long ago; on the other hand, because 
his figure seemed to guarantee moderation and might 
attract many hesitating minds. 

It was, therefore, again to safeguard his independence 
that Erasmus changed his residence. It was a great 
wrench this time. Old age and invalidism had made the 
restless man a stay-at-home. As he foresaw trouble 
from the side of the municipality, he asked Archduke 
Ferdinand,—who for his brother Charles V governed 
the German empire and just then presided over the diet 
of Speyer,—to send him a safe conduct for the whole 
empire and an invitation, moreover, to come to court 
which he did not dream of accepting. As a place of 
refuge he had selected the not far distant town of Frei- 
burg in Breisgau, which was directly under the strict 


222 ERASMUS 


government of the Austrian house, and where he, there- 
fore, need not be afraid of such a turn of affairs as that 
at Basle. It was, moreover, a juncture at which the 
imperial authority and the Catholic cause in Germany 
seemed again to be gaining ground rapidly. 

Erasmus would not or could not keep his departure a 
secret. He sent the most precious of his possessions in 
advance, and when this had drawn attention to his plan, 
he purposely invited Oecolampadius to a farewell talk. 
The reformer testified his sincere friendship for Erasmus, 
which the latter did not decline, provided he granted 
him to differ on certain points of dogma. Oecolampadius 
tried to keep him from leaving the town, and, when it 
proved too late for that, to persuade him to return later. 
They took leave with a handshake. Erasmus had de- 
sired to jom his boat at a distant landing-stage, but 
the Council would not allow this: he had to start from 
the usual place near the Rhine bridge. A numerous 
crowd witnessed his embarkation, April 13th, 1529. 
Some friends were there to see him off. No unfavour- 
able demonstration occurred. 

His reception at Freiburg convinced him that, in spite 
of all, he was still the celebrated and admired prince of 
letters. The Council placed at his disposal the large, 
though unfinished house which had been built for the 
Emperor Maxmilian himself; a professor of theology 
offered him his garden. Anthony Fugger had tried to 
draw him to Augsburg by means of a yearly allowance. 
For the rest he considered Freiburg by no means as a 
permanent place of abode. “I have resolved to remain 
here this winter and then to fly with the swallows to the 
place whither God shall call me.” But he soon recog- 


HUMANISTS AND REFORMERS 223 


nised the great advantage which Freiburg offered. The 
climate, to which he was so sensitive, turned out better 
than he expected, and the position of the town was ex- 
tremely favourable for emigrating to France, should 
circumstances require this, or for dropping down the 
Rhine back to the Netherlands, whither many always 
called him. In 1531 he bought a house at Freiburg. 

The old Erasmus at Freiburg, ever more tormented 
by his painful malady, much more disillusioned than 
when he left Louvain in 1521, of more confirmed views 
as to the great ecclesiastical strife, will only be fully 
revealed to us, when his correspondence with Boniface 
Amerbach, the friend whom he left behind at Basle,— 
a correspondence not found complete in the older col- 
lections,—shall have been edited by Dr. Allen’s care. 
From no period of Erasmus’ life, as 1t seems, may so 
much be gleaned, in point of knowledge of his daily 
habits and thoughts, as from these very years. Work 
went on without a break in that great scholar’s work- 
shop where he directs his famuli, who hunt manu- 
scripts for him, and then copy and examine them, 
and whence he sends forth his letters all over Europe. 
In the series of editions of the Fathers followed Basil 
and new editions of Chrysostom and Cyprian; his 
editions of classic authors were augmented by the 
works of Aristotle. He revised and republished the 
Colloquies three more times, the Adages and the New 
Testament once more. Occasional writings of a moral 
or politico-theological nature kept flowing from his pen. 

From the cause of the Reformation he was now quite 
estranged. “Pseudevangelici,’ he contumeliously calls 
the reformed. “I might have been a corypheus in 


224 ERASMUS 


Luther’s church,” he writes in 1528, “but I preferred 
incurring the hatred of all Germany than to be separate 
from the community of the Church.” The authorities 
should have paid a little less attention at first to Luther’s 
proceedings; then the fire would never have spread so 
violently. He had always urged theologians to let minor 
concerns which only contain an appearance of piety 
rest, and to turn to the sources of Scripture. Now it 
was too late. Towns and countries united ever more 
closely for or against the Reformation. “If—what I 
pray may never happen”—he writes to Sadolet in 1530, 
“you should see horrible commotions of the world arise, 
not so much fatal for Germany as for the Church, then 
remember Erasmus prophesied it.” To Beatus Rhenanus 
he frequently said that, had he known that an age like 
theirs was coming, he would never have written many 
things, or would not have written them as he had. 

“Just look,” he exclaims, “at the Evangelical people, 
have they become any better? Do they yield less to 
luxury, lust and greed? Show me a man whom that 
Gospel has changed from a toper to a temperate man, 
from a brute to a gentle creature, from a miser into a 
liberal person, from a shameless to a chaste being. I 
will show you many who have become even worse than 
they were.” Now they have thrown the images out of 
the churches and abolished mass (he is thinking of 
Basle especially): has anything better come instead? | 
“I have never entered their churches, but I have seen 
them return from hearing the sermon, as if inspired by 
an evil spirit, the faces of all showing a curious wrath 
and ferocity, and there was no one except one old man 


HUMANISTS AND REFORMERS 225 


who saluted me properly, when I passed in the company 
of some distinguished persons.” 

He hated that spirit of absolute assuredness so in- 
separably bound up with the reformers. “Zwingli and 
Bucer may be inspired by the Spirit, Erasmus from him- 
self is nothing but a man and cannot comprehend what 
is of the Spirit.” 

There was a group among the reformed to whom 
Erasmus in his heart of hearts was more nearly akin 
than to the Lutherans or Zwinglians with their rigid 
dogmatism: the Anabaptists. He rejected the doctrine 
from which they derived their name, and abhorred the 
anarchic element in them. He remained far too much the 
man of spiritual decorum to identify himself with these 
irregular believers. But he was not blind to the sincerity 
of their moral aspirations and sympathised with their 
dislike of brute force and the patience with which they 
bore persecution. ‘They are praised more than all others 
for the innocence of their life,” he writes in 1529. Just 
in the last part of his life came the episode of the violent 
revolutionary proceedings of the fanatic Anabaptists; it 
goes without saying that Erasmus speaks of it only with 
horror. 

One of the best historians of the Reformation, Walter 
Kohler, calls Erasmus one of the spiritual fathers of Ana- 
baptism. And certain it is that in its later, peaceful 
development it has important traits m common with 
Erasmus: a tendency to acknowledge free will, a certain 
rationalistic trend, a dislike of an exclusive conception of 
a Church. It seems possible to prove that the south- 
German Anabaptist Hans Denk derived opinions directly 
from Erasmus. For a considerable part, however, this 


226 ERASMUS 


community of ideas must, no doubt, have been based on 
peculiarities of religious consciousness in the Netherlands, 
whence Erasmus sprang, and where Anabaptism found 
such a receptive soil. Erasmus was certainly never 
aware of these connections. 

Some remarkable evidence regarding Erasmus’ altered 
attitude towards the old and the new Church is shown 
by what follows. 

The reproach he had formerly so often flung at the 
advocates of conservatism that they hated the bonae 
literae, so dear to him, and wanted to stifle them, he now 
uses against the evangelical party. “Wherever Luther- 
ism is dominant the study of literature is extinguished. 
Why else,”—he continues using a remarkable sophism,— 
“are Luther and Melanchthon compelled to call back the 
people so urgently to the love of letters?” “Just com- 
pare the University of Wittenberg with that of Louvain 
or Paris! ... Printers say that before this Gospel 
came they used to dispose of 3,000 volumes more quickly 
than now of 600. A sure proof that studies flourish!” 


XX 
LAST YEARS 


RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL CONTRASTS GROW SHARPER— 
THE COMING STRIFE IN GERMANY STILL SUSPENDED— 
ERASMUS FINISHES HIS ECCLESIASTES-DEATH OF 
FISHER AND MORE—ERASMUS BACK AT BASLE: 1535— 
POPE PAUL III WANTS TO MAKE HIM WRITE IN FAVOUR 
OF THE CAUSE OF THE COUNCIL—FAVOURS DECLINED 
BY ERASMUS—DE PURITATE ECCLESIAE—THE END: 12 
JULY, 1536. 

During the last years of Erasmus’ life all the great 
issues which kept the world in suspense were rapidly 
taking threatening forms. Wherever before compromise 
or reunion had still seemed possible, now sharp con- 
flicts, clearly outlined party-groupings, binding formulae 
were barring the way to peace. While in the spring of 
1529 Erasmus prepared for his departure from Basle, a 
strong Catholic majority of the diet at Speyer got 
the recess of 1526, favourable for the Evangelicals, re- 
called, only the Lutherans among them keeping what 
they had obtained; and secured a prohibition of any 
further changes or novelties. The Zwinglians and Ana- 
baptists were not allowed to enjoy the least tolerance. 
This was immediately followed by the Protest of the 
chief evangelical princes and towns, which henceforth 
was to give the name to all anti-Catholics together 
(19th April, 1529). And not only between Catholics 
and Protestants in the Empire did the rupture become 
complete. Even before the end of that year the ques- 
tion of the Lord’s supper proved an insuperable stum- 


227 


228 ERASMUS 


bling-block in the way of a real union of Zwinglians 
and Lutherans. Luther parted from Zwingli at the 
colloquy of Marburg with the words, “Your spirit 
differs from ours.” 

In Switzerland civil war had openly broken out be- 
tween the Catholic and the Evangelical cantons, only 
calmed for a short time by the first peace of Kappel. 
The treaties of Cambray and Barcelona, which in 1529 
restored at least political peace in Christendom for the 
time being, could no more draw from old Erasmus 
jubilations about a coming golden age, like those with 
which the concord of 1516 had inspired him. A month 
later the Turks appeared before Vienna. 

All these occurrences could not but distress and alarm 
Erasmus. But he was outside them. When reading his 
letters of that period we are more than ever impressed 
by the fact that he, for all the width and liveliness of his 
mind, is remote from the great happenings of his time. 
Beyond a certain circle of interests, touching his own 
ideas or his person, his perceptions are vague and weak. 
If he still meddles occasionally with questions of the 
day, he does so in the moralizing manner, by means of 
generalities, without emphasis: his Advice about declar- 
ing war on the Turks (March, 1530) is written in the 
form of an interpretation of psalm 28, and so vague that, 
at the close, he himself anticipates that the reader may 
exclaim: “But now say clearly: do you think that war 
should be declared or not?” 

In the summer of 1530 the Diet met again at Augs- 
burg under the auspices of the Emperor himself to try 
once more “to attain to a good peace and Christian 
truth.” The Augsburg Confession, defended all too 


LAST YEARS 229 


weakly by Melanchthon, was read here, disputed, and 
declared refuted by the Emperor. 

Erasmus had no share in all this. Many had exhorted 
him in letters to come to Augsburg; but he had in vain 
expected a summons from the Emperor. At the instance 
of the Emperor’s counsellors he had postponed his pro- 
posed removal to Brabant in that autumn till after the 
decision of the Diet. But his services were not needed 
for the drastic resolution of repression with which the 
Emperor closed the session in November. 

The great struggle in Germany seemed to be approach- 
ing: the resolutions of Augsburg were followed by the 
formation of the league of Schmalkalden uniting all Prot- 
estant territories and towns of Germany in their opposi- 
tion to the Emperor. In the same year (1531) Zwingli 
was killed in the battle of Kappel against the Catholic 
cantons, soon to be followed by Oecolampadius, who 
died at Basle. “It is right,” writes Erasmus, “that 
those two leaders have perished. If Mars had been 
favourable to them, we should now have been done 
for.” 

In Switzerland a sort of equilibrium had set in; at any 
rate matters had come to a standstill; in Germany the 
inevitable struggle was postponed for many years. The 
Emperor had understood that he, to combat the Ger- 
man Protestants effectively, should first get the Pope to 
hold the Council which would abolish the acknowledged 
abuses of the Church. The religious peace of Nurem- 
berg (1532) put the seal upon this turn of imperial 
policy. 

It might seem as if before long the advocates of mod- 
erate reform and of a compromise might after all get a 


230 . ERASMUS 


chance of being heard. But Erasmus had become too 
old to actively participate in the decisions (if he had 
ever seriously considered such participation). He does 
write a treatise, though, in 1533, “On the sweet concord 
of the Church,” like his Advice on the Turks in the 
form of an interpretation of a psalm (83). But it would 
seem as if the old vivacity of his style and his power of 
expression, so long unimpaired, now began to flag. The 
same remark applies to an essay “On the preparation 
for death,’ published the same year. His voice was 
growing weaker. 

During these years he turned his attention chiefly to 
the completion of the great work which more than any 
other represented for him the summing up and complete 
exposition of his moral-theological ideas: “Ecclesiastes 
or, On the way to preach.” Erasmus had always re- 
garded preaching as the most dignified part of an eccle- 
siastic’s duties. As preachers, he had most highly valued 
Colet and Vitrarius. As early as 1519 his friend, John 
Becar of Borselen, urged him to follow up the Enchi- 
ridion of the Christian soldier and the Institutio of the 
Christian prince, by the true instruction of the Christian 
preacher. “Later, later,’ Erasmus had promised him, 
“at present I have too much work, but I hope to 
undertake it soon.” In 1523 he had already made a 
sketch and some notes for it. It was meant for John 
Fisher, the bishop of Rochester, Erasmus’ great friend 
and brother-spirit, who eagerly looked forward to it and 
urged the author to finish it. The work gradually grew 
into the most voluminous of Erasmus’ original writings: 
a forest of a work, “operis sylvam,” he calls it himself, 
In four books he treated his subject, the art of preaching 


LAST YEARS 231 


well and decorously, with an inexhaustible abundance of 
examples, illustrations, schemes, etc. But was it possible 
that a work, conceived already by the Erasmus of 1519, 
and upon which he had been so long engaged, while he 
himself had gradually given up the boldness of his earlier 
years, could still be a revelation in 1533, as the Enchi- 
ridion had been in its day? 

Ecclesiastes is the work of a mind fatigued, which no 
longer sharply reacts upon the needs of his time. As 
_the result of a correct, intellectual, tasteful instruction in 
a suitable manner of preaching, in accordance with the 
purity of the Gospel, Erasmus expects to see society 
improve. “The people becomes more obedient to the 
authorities, more respectful towards the law, more peace- 
able. Between husband and wife comes greater concord, 
more perfect faithfulness, greater dislike to adultery. 
Servants obey more willingly, artisans work better, 
merchants cheat no more.” 

At the same time that Erasmus took this work to 
Froben, at Basle, to print, a book of a young French- 
man, who had recently fled from France to Basle, 
passed through the press of another Basle printer, 
Thomas Platter. It too was to be a manual of the 
life of faith: the Institution of the Christian Religion, 
by Calvin. 


Even before Erasmus had quite completed the Hcclesi- 
astes, the man for whom the work had been meant was 
no more. Instead of to the bishop of Rochester, 
Erasmus dedicated his voluminous work to the bishop of 
Augsburg, Christopher of Stadion. John Fisher, to set 
a seal to his spiritual endeavours, resembling those of 


232 , ERASMUS 


Erasmus in so many respects, had left behind, as a testi- 
mony to the world, for which Erasmus knew himself too 
weak, that of martyrdom. On the 22nd of June, 1535, 
he was beheaded by command of Henry VIII. He died 
for being faithful to the old Church. Together with 
More he had steadfastly refused to take the oath to 
the Statute of Supremacy. Not two weeks after Fisher, 
Thomas More mounted the scaffold. The fate of those 
two noblest of his friends grieved Erasmus. It moved 
him to do what for years he had no longer done; to 
write a poem. But rather than in the fine Latin mea- 
sure of that Carmen heroicum one would have liked to 
hear his emotion in language of sincere dismay and 
indignation in his letters. They are hardly there. In 
the words devoted to Fisher’s death in the preface to 
the Ecclesiastes there is no heartfelt emotion. Also in 
his letters of those days, he speaks with reserve. 
“Would More had never meddled with that dangerous 
business, and left the theological cause to the theolo- 
gians.” As if More had died for aught but simply for 
his conscience! 


When Erasmus wrote these words, he was no longer 
at Freiburg. He had in June, 1535, gone to Basle, to 
work in Froben’s printing office, as of old; the Hcclesi- 
astes was at last going to press and still required care- 
ful supervision and the final touches during the process; 
the Adagia had to be reprinted, and a Latin edition of 
Origenes was in preparation. The old, sick man was 
cordially received by the many friends who still lived 
at Basle. Hieronymus Froben, Johannes’ son, who 
after his father’s death managed the business with 


LAST YEARS 233 


two relatives, sheltered him in his house Zum Luft. In 
the hope of his return a room had been built expressly 
for him and fitted up as was convenient for him. Eras- 
mus found that at Basle the ecclesiastical storms which 
had formerly driven him away, had subsided. Quiet and 
order had returned. He did feel a spirit of distrust in 
the air, it is true, “but I think that, on account of my age, 
of habit, and of what little erudition I possess, I have 
now got so far that I may live in safety anywhere.” At 
first he had regarded the removal as an experiment. He 
did not mean to stay at Basle. If his health could not 
stand the change of air, he would return to his fine, well- 
appointed, comfortable house at Freiburg. If he should 
prove able to bear it, then the choice was between the 
Netherlands (probably Brussels, Mechlin or Antwerp, 
perhaps Louvain) or Burgundy, in particular Besancon. 
Towards the end of his life he clung to the illusion which 
he had been cherishing for a long time that Burgundy 
wine alone was good for him and kept his malady in 
check. There is something pathetic in the proportions 
which this wine-question gradually assumes: that it is 
so dear at Basle might be overlooked, but the thievish 
waggoners drink up or spoil what is imported. 

In August he doubted greatly whether he will return 
to Freiburg. In October he sold his house and part of 
his furniture and had the rest transported to Basle. 
After the summer he hardly left his room, and was 
mostly bedridden. 

Though the formidable worker in him still yearned 
for more years and time to labour, his soul was ready 
for death. Happy he had never felt; only during 
the last years he utters his longing for the end. He 


234 ERASMUS 


was still, curiously enough, subject to the delusion of 
being in the thick of the struggle. “In this arena I 
shall have to fall,” he writes in 1533. “Only this con- 
soles me, that near at hand already, the general haven 
comes in sight, which, if Christ be favourable, will bring 
the end of all labour and trouble.” Two years later 
his voice sounds more urgent: “That the Lord might 
deign to call me out of this raving world to his rest.” 

Most of his old friends were gone. Warham and 
Mountjoy had passed away before More and Fisher; 
Peter Gilles, so many years younger than he, had de- 
parted in 1533; also Pirkheimer had been dead for 
years. Beatus Rhenanus shows him to us, during the 
last months of his life, reperusing his friends’ letters of 
the last few years, and repeating: “This one, too, is 
dead.” As he grew more solitary, his suspiciousness and 
his feeling of being persecuted became stronger. “My 
friends decrease, my enemies increase,” he writes in 
1532, when Warham has died and Aleander has risen 
still higher. In the autumn of 1535 he thinks that all 
his former servant-pupils betray him, even the best 
beloved ones like Quirin Talesius and Charles Utenhove. 
They do not write to him, he complains. 

In October, 1534, Pope Clement VII was succeeded 
by Paul III, who at once zealously took up the Coun- 
cil-question. The meeting of a Council was, in the eyes 
of many, the only means by which union could be re- 
stored to the Church, and now a chance of realising 
this seemed nigh. At once the most learned theolo- 
gians were invited to help in preparing the great work. 
Erasmus did not omit, in January, 1535, to address to 
the new Pope a letter of congratulation, in which he pro- 


LAST YEARS 235 


fessed his willingness to co-operate in bringing about the 
pacification of the Church, and warned the Pope to steer 
a cautious middle-course. On the 31st of May followed 
a reply full of kindliness and acknowledgment. The 
Pope exhorted Erasmus, “that you too, graced by God 
with so much laudable talent and learning may help us 
in this pious work, which is so agreeable to your mind, 
to defend, with us, the Catholic religion, by the spoken 
and the written word, before and during the Council, and 
in this manner by this last work of piety, as by the 
best act to close a life of religion and so many writings, 
to refute your accusers and rouse your admirers to 
fresh efforts.” 

Would Eramus in years of greater strength have 
seen his way to co-operate actively in the council of the 
great? Undoubtedly, the Pope’s exhortation correctly 
represented his inclination. But once faced by the 
necessity of hard, clear resolutions, what would he have 
effected? Would his spirit of peace and toleration, of 
reserve and compromise, have brought alleviation and 
warded off the coming struggle? He was spared the 
experiment. 

He knew himself too weak to be able to think of 
strenuous church-political propaganda any more. Soon 
there came proofs that the kindly feelings at Rome were 
sincere. There had been some question also of number- 
ing Erasmus among the cardinals who were to be nomi- 
nated with a view to the Council; a considerable bene- 
fice connected with the church of Deventer was already 
offered him. But Erasmus urged the Roman friends 
who were thus active in his behalf to cease their 
kind offices; he would accept nothing, he a man who 


236 ERASMUS 


lived from day to day, in expectation of death and 
often hoping for it, who could hardly ever leave his 
room—would people instigate him to hunt for deaneries 
and cardinals’ hats! He had subsistence enough to 
last him. He wanted to die independent. 

Yet his pen did not rest. The Ecclesiastes had been 
printed and published and Origenes was still to fol- 
low. Instead of the important and brilliant task to 
which Rome called him, he devoted his last strength 
to a simple deed of friendly cordiality. The friend 
to whose share the honour fell to receive from the old, 
death-sick author a last composition prepared expressly 
for him, amidst the most terrible pains, was the most 
modest of the number who had not lost their faith 
in him. No prelate or prince, no great wit or admired 
divine, but Christopher Eschenfelder, customs officer 
at Boppard on the Rhine. On his passage in 1518 
Erasmus had, with glad surprise, found him to be a 
reader of his work and a man of culture. That friend- 
ship had been a lasting one. Eschenfelder had asked 
Erasmus to dedicate the interpretation of some psalm 
to him (a form of composition often preferred by 
Erasmus of late). About the close of 1535 he re- 
membered that request. He had forgotten whether 
Eschenfelder had indicated a particular psalm and 
chose one at haphazard, psalm 14, calling the treatise 
On the purity of the Christian Church. He expressly 
dedicated it to “the publican” in January, 1536. It is 
not remarkable among his writings as to contents and 
form, but it was to be his last. 

On the 12th of February, 1536, Erasmus made his 
final preparations. In 1527 he had already made a will 


LAST YEARS 237 


with detailed clauses for the printing of his complete 
works by Froben. In 1534 he drew up an accurate 
inventory of his belongings. He sold his library to 
the Polish nobleman Johannes a Lasco. The arrange- 
ments of 1536 testify to two things which had played 
an important part in his life: his relations with the 
house of Froben and his need of friendship. Boniface 
Amerbach is his heir. Hieronymus Froben and Nicholas 
Episcopius, the managers of the business, are his 
executors. ‘To each of the good friends who were left 
to him he bequeathed one of the trinkets which spoke 
of his fame with princes and the great ones of the 
earth, in the first place to Louis Ber and Beatus 
Rhenanus. The poor and the sick were not forgotten, 
and he remembered especially girls about to marry 
and youths of promise. The details of this charity 
he left to Amerbach. 

In March, 1536, he still thinks of leaving for Bur- 
gundy. Money-matters occupy him and he speaks 
of the necessity of making new friends, for the old ones 
leave him: the bishop of Cracow, Zasius at Freiburg. 
According to Beatus Rhenanus, the Brabant plan stood 
foremost at the end of Erasmus’ life. The Regent, 
Mary of Hungary, did not cease to urge him to return 
to the Netherlands. Erasmus’ own last utterance leaves 
us in doubt whether he had made up his mind. 
“Though I am living here with the most sincere friends, 
such as I did not possess at Freiburg, I should yet, on 
account of the differences of doctrine, prefer to end my 
life elsewhere. If only Brabant were nearer.” 

This he writes on June 28th, 1536. He had felt so 
poorly for some days that he had not even been able 


238 . ERASMUS 


to read. In the letter we again trace the delusion that 
Aleander persecutes him, sets on opponents against him, 
and even lays snares for his friends. Did his mind at 
last give way too? 

On the 12th of July the end came. The friends who 
were standing around his couch heard him groan in- 
cessantly: “O Jesu, misericordia; Domine libera me; 
Domine miserere mei!” And at last in Dutch: “Lieve 
God.” 


XXT 
CONCLUSION 


CONCLUSION—ERASMUS AND THE SPIRIT OF THE SIX- 
TEENTH CENTURY—HIS WEAK POINTS—A THOROUGH 
IDEALIST AND YET A MODERATE MIND—THE EN- 
LIGHTENER OF A CENTURY—HE ANTICIPATES TENDEN- 
CIES OF TWO CENTURIES LATER—HIS INFLUENCE 
AFFECTS BOTH PROTESTANTISM AND CATHOLIC REFORM 
—THE ERASMIAN SPIRIT IN THE NETHERLANDS. 
Looking back on the life of Erasmus the question 

still arises: why has he remained so great? For ostensi- 
bly his endeavours ended in failure. He withdraws in 
alarm from that tremendous struggle which he rightly 
calls a tragedy; the sixteenth century, bold and ve- 
hement, thunders past him, disdaining his ideal of mod- 
eration and tolerance. Latin literary erudition, which 
to him was the epitome of all true culture, has gone 
out as such. Erasmus, so far as regards the greater 
part of his writings, is among the great ones who are no 
longer read. He has become a name. But why does 
that name still sound so clear and articulate? Why 
does he keep regarding us, as if he still knew a little 
more than he has ever been willing to utter? 

What has he been to his age, and what was he to be 
for later generations? Has he been rightly called a 
precursor of the modern spirit? 

Regarded as a child of the sixteenth century, he 
does seem to differ from the general tenor of his times. 
Among those vehemently passionate, drastically ener- 
getic and violent natures of the great ones of his day, 
Erasmus stands as the man of too few prejudices, with 


239 


240 ERASMUS 


a little too much delicacy of taste, with a deficiency, 
though not, indeed, in every department, of that Stzl- 
titia which he had praised as a necessary constituent of 
life. Erasmus is the man who is too sensible and mod- 
erate for the heroic. 

What a surprising difference there is between the 
accent of Erasmus and that of Luther, Calvin, and 
Santa Teresa! What a difference, also, between his 
accent, that is, the accent of humanism, and that of 
Albrecht Diirer, of Michelangelo, or: of Shakespeare. 

Erasmus seems, at times, the man who was not strong 
enough for his age. In that robust sixteenth century 
it seems as if the oaken strength of Luther was neces- 
sary, the steely edge of Calvin, the white heat of 
Loyola; not the velvet softness of Erasmus. Not only 
were their force and their fervour necessary, but also 
their depth, their unsparing, undaunted consistency, 
sincerity and outspokenness. 

They can not bear that smile which makes Luther 
speak of the guileful being looking out of Erasmus’ fea- 
tures. His piety is too even for them, too limp. Loyola 
has testified that the reading of the Hnchiridion militis 
christiant relaxed his fervour and made his devotion 
grow cold. He saw that warrior of Christ differently, 
in the glowing colours of the Spanish-Christian, medieval 
ideal of chivalry. 

Erasmus had never passed through those depths of 
self-reprobation and that consciousness of sin which 
Luther had traversed with toil; he saw no devil to 
fight with, and tears were not familiar to him. Was 
he altogether unaware of the deepest mystery? Or 
did it rest in him too deep for utterance? 


CONCLUSION 241 


Let us not suppose too quickly that we are more 
nearly allied to Luther or Loyola because their figures 
appeal to us more. If at present our admiration goes 
out again to the ardently pious, and to spiritual ex- 
tremes, it is partly because our unstable time requires 
strong stimulus. To appreciate Erasmus we should 
begin by giving up our admiration of the extravagant, 
and for many this requires a certain effort at present. 
It is extremely easy to break the staff over Erasmus. 
His faults lie on the surface, and though he wished to 
hide many things, he never hid his weaknesses. 

He was too much concerned about what people 
thought, and he could not hold his tongue. His mind 
was too rich and facile, always suggesting a superfluity 
of arguments, cases, examples, quotations. He could 
never let things slide. All his life long he grudged him- 
self leisure to rest and collect himself, to see how un- 
important after all was the commotion roundabout him, 
if only he went his own way courageously. Rest and 
independence he desired most ardently of all things; 
there was no more restless and dependent creature. 
Judge him as one of a too delicate constitution who 
ventures out in a storm. His will-power was great 
enough. He worked night and day, amidst the most 
violent bodily suffering, with a great ideal steadfastly 
before him, never satisfied with his own achievements. 
He was not self-sufficient. 


As an intellectual type Erasmus was one of a rather 
small group: the absolute idealists who, at the same 
time, are thoroughly moderate. They can not bear the 
world’s imperfections; they feel constrained to oppose. 


242 | ERASMUS 


But extremes are uncongenial to them; they shrink 
back from action, because they know it pulls down as 
much as it erects, and so they withdraw themselves, 
and keep calling that everything should be different; 
but when the crisis comes, they reluctantly side with 
tradition and conservatism. Here too is a fragment of 
Erasmus’ life-tragedy: he was the man who saw the 
new and coming things more clearly than anyone else,— 
who must needs quarrel with the old and yet could not 
accept the new. He tried to remain in the fold of the 
old Church, after having damaged it seriously, and 
renounced the Reformation, and to a certain extent even 
Humanism, after having furthered both with ail his 
strength. 


Our final opinion about Erasmus has been concerned 
with negative qualities, so far. What was his positive 
importance? 

Two facts make it difficult for the modern mind to 
understand Erasmus’ positive importance: first that his 
influence was extensive rather than intensive, and there- 
fore less historically discernible at definite points, and 
second, that his influence has ceased. He has done his 
work and will speak to the world no more. Like Saint 
Jerome, his revered model, and Voltaire, with whom 
he has been occasionally compared, “he has his reward.” 
But like them he has been the enlightener of an age 
from whom a broad stream of culture emanated. 

As historic investigation of the French Revolution 
is becoming more and more aware that the true history 
of France during that period should be looked for in 


CONCLUSION 243 


those groups which as “Centre” or “Marais,” seemed 
for a long time but a drove of supernumeraries, and 
understands that it should occasionally protect its eyes 
a little from the lightning flashes of the Gironde and 
Mountain thunderstorm; so the history of the Refor- 
mation-period should pay attention,—and it has done 
so for a long time,—to the broad central sphere per- 
meated by the Erasmian spirit. One of his opponents 
said: “Luther has drawn a large part of the Church 
to himself, Zwingli and Oecolampadius also some part, 
but Erasmus the largest.” Erasmus’ public was numer- 
ous and of high culture. He was the only one of 
the Humanists who really wrote for all the world, that 
is to say, for all educated people. He accustomed a 
whole world to another and more fluent mode of ex- 
pression: he shifted the interest, he influenced by his 
perfect clarity of exposition, even through the medium 
of Latin, the style of the vernacular languages, apart 
from the numberless translations of his works. For his 
contemporaries Erasmus put on many new stops, one 
might say, of the great organ of human ExTEssiOn, | as 
Rousseau was to do two centuries later. 

He might well think with some complacency of the 
influence he had exerted on the world. “From all parts 
of the world,’—he writes towards the close of his life— 
“T am daily thanked by many, because they have been 
kindled by my works, whatever may be their merit, 
into zeal for a good disposition and sacred literature; 
and they who have never seen Erasmus, yet know and 
love him from his books.” He was glad that his trans- 
lations from the Greek had become superfluous; he 
had everywhere led many to take up Greek and Holy 


244 ERASMUS 


Scripture, “which otherwise they would never have 
read.” He had been an introducer and an initiator. 
He might leave the stage after having said his say. 

His word signified something beyond a classical sense 
and biblical disposition. It was at the same time the 
first enunciation of the creed of education and per- 
fectibility, of warm social feeling and of faith in human 
nature, of peaceful kindliness and toleration. “Christ 
dwells everywhere; piety is practised under every gar- 
ment, if only a kindly disposition is not wanting.” 

In all these ideas and convictions Erasmus really 
heralds a later age. In the sixteenth and seventeenth 
centuries those thoughts remained an undercurrent: in 
the eighteenth Erasmus’ message of deliverance bore 
fruit. In this respect he has most certainly been a pre- 
cursor and preparer of the modern mind: of Rousseau, 
Herder, Pestalozzi and the English and American think- 
ers. It is only part of the modern mind which is repre- 
sented by all this. To a number of its developments 
Erasmus was wholly a stranger, to the evolution of 
natural science, of the newer philosophy, of political 
economy. But in so far as people still believe in the ideal 
that moral education and general tolerance may make 
humanity happier, humanity owes much to Erasmus. 


This does not imply that Erasmus’ mind did not di- 
rectly and fruitfully influence his own times. Although 
Catholics regarded him in the heat of the struggle as 
the corrupter of the Church, and Protestants as the 
betrayer of the Gospel, yet his word of moderation and 
kindliness did not pass by unheard or unheeded on 
either side. Eventually neither camp finally rejected 


CONCLUSION 245 


Erasmus. Rome did not brand him as an arch-heretic, 
but only warned the faithful to read him with caution. 
Protestant history has been studious to reckon him as 
one of the Reformers. Both obeyed in this the pro- 
nouncement of a public opinion which was above parties 
and which continued to admire and revere Erasmus. 

To the reconstruction of the Catholic Church and 
the erection of the evangelical churches not only the 
names of Luther and Loyola are linked. The moderate, 
the intellectual, the conciliating have also had their 
share of the work;—figures like Melanchthon here, Sa- 
dolet there, both nearly allied to Erasmus and sympa- 
thetically disposed towards him. The frequently re- 
peated attempts to arrive at some compromise in the 
great religious conflict, though they might be doomed to 
end in failure, emanated from the Erasmian spirit. 

Nowhere did that spirit take root so easily as in the 
country that gave Erasmus birth. A curious detail 
shows us that it was not the exclusive privilege of 
either great party. Of his two most favoured pupils 
of later years, both Netherlanders, whom as the actors 
of the colloquy Astragalismus, the game of knucklebones, 
he has immortalised together, the one Quirin Talesius, 
died for his attachment to the Spanish cause and the 
Catholic faith: he was hanged in 1572 by the citizens 
of Haarlem, where he was a burgomaster. The other, 
Charles Utenhove, was sedulous on the side of the re- 
volt and the Reformed religion. At Ghent, in concert 
with the Prince of Orange, he turned against the narrow- 
minded Protestant terrorism of the zealots. 

A Dutch historian recently tried to trace back the 
opposition of the Dutch against the king of Spain to the 


246 . ERASMUS 


influence of Erasmus’ political thought in his arraignment 
of bad princes—wrongly as I think. Erasmus’ political 
diatribes were far too academic and too general for 
that. The desire of resistance and revolt arose from 
quite other causes. The “Gueux” were not Erasmus’ 
progeny. But there is much that is Erasmian in the 
spirit of their great leader, William of Orange, whose 
vision ranged so widely beyond the limitations of re- 
ligious hatred. Thoroughly permeated by the Erasmian 
spirit, too, was that class of municipal magistrates who 
were soon to take the lead and to set the fashion in the 
established Republic. History is wont, as always with 
an aristocracy, to take their faults very seriously. 
After all, perhaps no other aristocracy, unless it be 
that of Venice, has ruled a state so long, so well and 
with so little violence. If in the seventeenth century 
the institutions of Holland, in the eyes of for- 
eigners, were the admired models of prosperity, 
charity and social discipline, and patterns of gen- 
tleness and wisdom, however defective they may 
seem to us,—then the honour of all this is due to the 
municipal aristocracy. If in the Dutch paitriciate of 
that time those aspirations lived and were translated 
into action, it was Erasmus’ spirit of social responsi- 
bility which inspired them. The history of Holland is 
far less bloody and cruel than that of any of the sur- 
rounding countries. Not for naught did Erasmus praise 
as truly Dutch those qualities which we might also 
call truly Erasmian: gentleness, kindliness, moderation, 
a generally diffused moderate erudition. Not romantic 
virtues, if you like; but are they the less salutary? 
One more instance. In the Republic of the Seven 





CONCLUSION 247 


Provinces the atrocious executions of witches and wiz- 
ards ceased more than a century before they did in 
all other countries. This was not owing to the merit 
of the Reformed pastors. They shared the popu- 
lar belief which demanded persecution. It was the 
magistrates whose enlightenment even as early as the 
beginning of the 17th century no longer tolerated these 
things. Again, we are entitled to say, though Erasmus 
was not one of those who combated this practice: the 
spirit which breathes from this is that of Erasmus. 

Cultured humanity has cause to hold Erasmus’ mem- 
ory in esteem, if for no other reason than that he was 
the fervently sincere preacher of that general kindliness 
which the world still so urgently needs. 





APPENDIX 


THE PORTRAITS OF ERASMUS 


Erasmus was portrayed during his lifetime by three 
of the greatest artists of his age, and on their work are 
based the innumerable pictures of him, found every- 
where, which testify to his lasting and astonishing 
celebrity. 

In 1517 Erasmus and his friend Peter Gilles had 
themselves painted together at Antwerp by Quentin 
Metsys, in a diptych, in order to offer this double por- 
trait to their common friend Thomas More, who not 
long before had insured lasting fame for Gilles by mak- 
ing him the host in his setting of the Utopia. More 
received the portrait at Calais in October, 1517. He was 
enchanted and expressed his admiration and gratitude 
in a Latin eulogy on the friends and the artist.’ 

The portrait of Peter Gilles has been preserved, and 
is now in the possession of Earl Radnor at Longford 
Castle, near Salisbury. That of Erasmus probably ex- 
ists in copies alone, in the Lincei Gallery at Rome, 
at Hampton Court, and at the Amsterdam State 
Museum. Gilles holds a letter from More in one hand 
and points with the other at a book inscribed Anti- 
barbari (which, however, had not yet been printed in 





1 Allen nos. 584.6, 601.50, 616.9, 654.1, 669.1, 681.9, 683, 684, 688.8. 
Reproduction: Allen, p. 576-77 and elsewhere. 


249 


250 : ERASMUS 


1517, nor was in Gilles’ possession in manuscript). 
Erasmus is writing the beginning of his Paraphrase of 
the Epistle to the Romans. Behind him are several 
other books (vide Allen III, p. 106.14). 

In 1519 Quentin Metsys, at Antwerp, made a medal 
of Erasmus which is found in lead and in bronze, and 
was presented by Erasmus himself to several friends 
and patrons? In 1524, through the agency of Pirk- 
heimer, he had new bronze casts made at Nuremberg 
from a damaged leaden one.” A smaller modified re- 
production of 1531 is perhaps by the hand of Janus 
Secundus, Latin poet and son of Erasmus’ friend, 
Nicholas Everaert, who in 1520 received the Metsys 
medal from him. 

The medal of 1519 bears on either side of the head 
the name #r. Rot., under it the date 1519, and for 
legend: rav xpeirrw Ta ovyypaupara Seite Imago ad vivam 
effigiem expressa. The reverse shows a Terminus with 
a Greek and a Latin inscription. 

The Greek inscription, “the better image his writings 
will show you,” which recurs on later pictures, cor- 
responds to a thought that Erasmus frequently ex- 
pressed.* As for the Terminus, Erasmus had in 1509 
received a ring as a present from Alexander Stewart 
in which there was an antique gem representing Ter- 
minus. After an Italian antiquary had drawn his at- 
tention to the representation, Erasmus made Terminus 


—_——_—_______ 


+A. 1092, 1101.8, 1119.5, 1122.18 cf. LBE. 954C, 1073F. 

2 LBE. 646 C, 744 A, 669 C, 783 A, 727 C, 847 E, app. 327 C, 1704 C. 
30pa 7éX\os axpod Biov, Mors ultima ratio rerum. 

4A. 875.17, 943.30, 981.20, 1101.7. 


APPENDIX 251 


his emblem, meaning it to be a reminder of the close 
of life. He had Cedo nulli, “I yield to none,’ en- 
graved on the stone and used it as a seal. He meant 
by it the unshakableness of death, as did the inscriptions 
on the reverse of the Metsys medal, but his enemies 
reproached him with it as an expression of pride.’ Pirk- 
heimer had the Terminus engraved on a cup which he 
offered Erasmus, and Boniface Amerbach had it carved 
on his tombstone. 

From the medal a woodcut was made’ in 1521 and in 
1522 a new and freer reproduction. 

At Basle Erasmus came into contact with Hans Hol- 
bein whose art was to be most closely associated with 
Erasmus’ fame. In a copy of Froben’s edition of the 
Moria of March, 1515, Holbein had (probably in that 
same year, when at the age of 17, he came to Basle), 
at the request of the owner, Myconius, and to amuse 
Erasmus, drawn the series of exquisite illustrations, 
among which was a thumb-nail sketch of the author.’ 
It accompanies the sentence: “But I shall stop quot- 
ing proverbs that I may not seem to have plundered 
the work of my Erasmus,” and represents him writing 
the Adagia. The name Erasmus is written in the 
window niche. The drawing is said to have drawn from 
Erasmus the jesting exclamation cited above. 

In 1523 Holbein made three painted portraits of 





1LBB. X. 1757, LBE. 1283 DE. Allen I, p. 70, III 604.2, 16. R. Fruin, 
Verspreide Geschriften VIII 268. 

2A, 1092 t. IV p. 238 note. 

8 Zeitschr. f. bild. Kunst 1899 N. F. X, p. 47. 

4A, 394, 739. The drawings are all reproduced in Kan’s edition of 
the Moria. The original is preserved in the Art Museum at Basle. 

5 Cap. 61 ed. Kan p. 155-6. 


202 ; ERASMUS 


Erasmus. ‘Two are almost identical representations in 
profile showing Erasmus writing, now at Basle and at 
Paris (Louvre), and one is in trois quart, with the 
hands resting on a book, at Longford Castle." The por- 
trait at Basle was probably a study for that at Paris. 
He is writing the beginning of his Paraphrase of the 
gospel of Saint Mark. On the book of the Longford 
portrait we read in Greek: “the labours of Hercules” 
(his adage no. 2001), to which Erasmus repeatedly com- 
pared his life-work. 

The Basle panel came from the collection of Amer- 
bach to whom it was most likely presented by Erasmus. 
The Longford portrait is probably the one which he 
gave to the archbishop of Canterbury. That in the 
Louvre, coming from English collections, possibly first 
belonged to More.” The Louvre also has two pages of 
studies of Erasmus’ hands used in the Longford and the 
Louvre portraits.’ 

Holbein’s success in England was undoubtedly due to 
a great extent to his Erasmus portraits. They made 
him known there, even before he set out for that 
country in 1526, with recommendations from Erasmus 
to More among others.* More was the first whom he 
painted in England. 

During Holbein’s second stay at Basle, from 1528 
till 1532, before he permanently removed to England, 
he repeatedly painted Erasmus, probably only once 





1Ganz, P., H. Holbein d. J., Klassiker der Kunst XX, 1912, pp. 
37, 38, 39. 

2LBE. app. 327 C, 1704 C, 813 E. 

3 Ganz. p. xxiii. 

4LBE. no. 832 C, 951 F. 


APPENDIX 253 


from life, however, as the latter left Basle in 1529, 
The new set, all made about 1530, gives a quite new 
interpretation of the face, which had considerably aged 
in the meantime. The series is represented by the 
small round portrait at Basle, out of the Amerbach 
collection; by the portrait at the Metropolitan Museum 
im New York which is an elaboration of the former, 
and by the portrait at Parma which Erasmus’ friend 
Goclenius presented to the bishop of Kulm.’ Holbein, 
however, also continued to work out his conception of 
1523, the Longford portrait, in new pictures. On this 
are based two pieces, at Paris (Walter Gay) and 
at Hampton Court;* this last was in the 17th cen- 
tury, joined, as a companion picture, with a por- 
trait of Froben. According to an old tradition, Eras- 
mus really had himself painted with Froben in a diptych, 
but this has not been preserved. Lastly there is a 
composition in which Holbein has blended the two 
models: the portrait at Petrograd,* of which the 
head represents the set of 1530, whereas the hands are 
taken from the Longford portrait. 

Of the numerous imitations of these various por- 
traits, the ones by George Pencz (1533, Vienna; 1537, 
Windsor) deserve to be mentioned. 

Lastly, Holbein pictured Erasmus twice in woodcut: 
in medallion (cut by Hans Liitzelburger) appearing 





1 Unless we assume as does P. Ganz, p. xxxvi, that Holbein went 
to Freiburg for the purpose. 

2Ganz, pp. 90, 91, 86. 

®Ganz, pp. 206, 207. 

Ganz, p. 214. 


254 j ERASMUS 


first in the Adagia-edition of 1533, and also worked 
up into an ornamental composition.” For both he did 
not use his own earlier studies but availed himself of 
the medal by Metsys or the woodcuts derived from it. 
On the last-nazned composition Erasmus is represented 
at full length, his right hand on the head of a Terminus 
under a richly ornamented renaissance arch. 

The drawing on parchment, in octavo, from the face of 
the dead Erasmus, mentioned in an inventory of Boni- 
face Amerbach, and unfortunately not preserved, cannot 
have been made by Holbein,’ as he was not at Basle in 
the summer of 1536. 

The third great master who has portrayed Erasmus 
was Albrecht Diirer. They became acquainted during 
Diirer’s journey in the Netherlands in 1520. Diirer 
twice made a sketch of him: at Antwerp and at Brus- 
sels, both in August.* The second, a charcoal drawing, 
nearly full faced, and the only one in that aspect, has 
been preserved and is at present in the Louvre, a bequest 
of L. Bonnat,’ over which the artist himself has written: 
“1520, Erasmus fon rottertam.” 

Through their common friend Pirkheimer Erasmus 
afterwards retained his attachment for Diirer, whose art 
he has praised in De Pronunciatione® On the 8th of 





1 Reproduction in B. Kruitwagen, Erasmus en zijn drukkers-uitgevers 
Amsterdam, 1923. The woodcuts dealt with by J. F. M. Sterck, 
Over een portret van E., Het Boek, 1916, p. 225, are imitations of this, 

2 Tietze-Conrat, pl. 6. 

® As was supposed by Haarhaus, Zeitschr. f. bild. Kunst, 1. ¢. p. 54. 

4 Allen 1132, 1136 intr. 

® Allen, IV p. 330-1, Tietze-Conrat, no. 7, Veth-Muller, I, pl. 23. 
Heong I 928 C-F, cf. LBE. C 1028 E, 1075 E and also c 744 AB. 


t 





APPENDIX 200 


January, 1525, Erasmus wrote to Pirkheimer’ to thank 
him for his portrait by Diirer, sent to him. He adds: 
“TI should like to be portrayed? by Direr; who would 
not by such a great artist? But how can he do it? 
He began at one time at Brussels in charcoal, but I 
must have faded from his mind long ago. If he can 
do anything with the medal and from memory, then 
let him do for me what he has done for you, whom he 
has made slightly stouter.’” 

Diirer has indeed used Metsys’ medal for the well- 
known copper-engraving of 1526,* representing him 
standing and writing (as was his habit) at a desk, a 
vase of flowers before him, and surrounded by books. 
The Greek inscription has been taken from the medal; 
the Latin one adapted from it. The face, though near 
akin to that of the medal, shows marked resemblances 
with Diirer’s own drawing of 1520: in the nose, mouth, 
eyelids, eyebrows, locks of hair, even the turned-down 
undergarment reminds us of it. We shall therefore have 
to assume that Diirer himself had kept the sketch as 
being unfinished. 

Erasmus, although grateful to the artist, was not satis- 
fied with the resemblance: “No wonder,” he wrote, “for 
I am no longer the man I was five years ago.’” “Diirer 
has portrayed me, but it is not like me at all,” he writes 





1LBE. C 847 DE; also already 19 July 1522 LBE. c 721 B. 

2‘'Pingere,”’ with Erasmus, does not only mean to paint. 

8This to be taken ironically. Erasmus had indeed become much 
thinner, cf. LBE. c 944 F. 

4 Tietze-Conrat, no. 8. Veth-Muller, I, pl. 24. 

SLBE. C 944 F. As usual Erasmus is wrong about the years: it 
WSE Bix. 


256 ; ERASMUS 


later.» Modern art-critics also are inclined to reject 
Diirer’s engraving as a likeness, perhaps too decidedly. 

It is a great pity that there is not the slightest ground 
to believe that a drawing by Lucas of Leyden, of 1521, 
in the Teyler Museum at Haarlem” represents Erasmus. 
One would have liked to find him also linked to this 
compatriot. 

Innumerable times has the portrait of Erasmus been 
copied, in pictures, drawings, engravings; among them 
are works by Van Dyck and Chodowiecki. There 
are no other truly original portraits of him. 

The statue at Rotterdam also deserves mention. 
When Philip II of Spain entered Rotterdam, on Sep- 
tember the 27th, 1549, a wooden ornamental statue 
of the great scholar stood before the house where he 
was born, to honour the monarch with a Latin eulogy, 
which the figure held in its hand written on a scroll. 
In 1557 it was replaced by a painted stone statue, 
which was torn down by the Spaniards in 1572. It 
was afterwards erected again, however, in the market- 
place. In 1622 this was replaced—in spite of the 
violent resistance of the Calvinist clergy who decried 
Erasmus as a libertine, a scoffer at all religion*—by a 


1LBE. C 1073 F. 
2 Reproduced in Zeitschr. f. bild. Kunst, 1, c. p. 53; Handzeichnungen 
alter Meister der holliindischen Schule, Kleinmann, Haarlem, and 

elsewhere. 

2 See about this J. H. W. Unger, De standbeelden van Desiderius 
Erasmus, Rotterdamsch Jaarboekje, 1890, p. 265 s.s. It was asserted. 
among other things, that some one had been seen kneeling before the 
stone statue. When in 1674, the statue was temporarily removed by 
the municipal authorities, the magistrate of Basle at once tried to 
buy it, in which he nearly succeeded. Typically Dutch is also the 
fact that the old stone statue was used for strengthening a jetty-head, 
placed upright in the ground where during the prolonged drought of 
1634 it became visible. 


APPENDIX 257 


brass image, made by Hendrik de Keyzer; which to this 
day, in his fatherland of old so sparing in erecting 
statues, testifies to the uncommon fame of this son. It 
remains highly characteristic that, for a few centuries, 
practically the only public statue in Holland was not 
that of a soldier, prince or statesman, nor of a poet, 
but of a scholar and that of a scholar who had rather 
neglected and despised his fatherland. 


INCONOGRAPHY 


Haarhaus, J. R., Die Bildnisse des Erasmus von Rotter- 
dam, Zeitschrift fiir Bildende Kunst 1899 N.F.X. p. 44. 

Machiels, A., Les Portraits d’Erasme, Gazette des Beaux 
Arts 1911, 58e année t. II p. 349. 

Moes, E. W., Iconographia Batava. no. 2385. 

Tietze-Conrat, E., Erasmus van Rotterdam in de Kunst, 
No. 8 of the Series: Kunst in Holland. Vienna, 1922. 


ae > 


<—_ 


Jj 
i 





BIBLIOGRAPHY 


1. Editions. 
Desiderii Erasmi Opera omnia, ed. J. Clericus, t. 10, 
Lugduni Batavorum, 1703-6. 
Opus epistolarum Des. Erasmi Roterodami, ed. P.S. 
Allen (from t. IV, P. 8. et H. M. Allen), Oxonii, 
t. I-V, 1906-1922)* Brought up to 1521 for 
earlier edition of Erasmus’ Letters see Allen, I, 
appendix 7, pp. 593-602. 


2. Some books on Erasmus and his times. 
Bibliotheca Erasmiana, Répertoire des oeuvres 
d’Erasme, listes sommaires, Gand, 1893. 
Only some of Erasmus’ works have been treat- 
ed in full, see Allen t. IV, p. xv. 
Allen, P. S., The Age of Erasmus, Oxford, 1914. 
Various studies of intellectual life in the 15th and 
16th centuries. 
Binns, Leonard Elliott, Krasmus the Reformer, A 
Study in Restatement, London, 1923. 
Appeared after the completion of this volume. 
Drummond, R. B., Erasmus, his Life and Char- 
acter, 2 vol., London, 1873. 
The best of the numerous Lives of Erasmus. 
Jongh, H. de—, L’ancienne faculté de théologie de 
Louvain, 1432-1540, Louvain, 1911. 
Important for the period 1517-1521 of Eras- 
mus’ Life. 





1The 5th volume, containing the letters up to 1524 has appeared 
after the completion of this book. 


259 


260 


ERASMUS 


Kan, J. B., Mwpiao eyxcmov Stultitiae Laus, Des. 
Erasmi Rot. declamatio, Hagae Com. 1898. 

Best edition of the Praise of Folly. 

Lindeboom, J., Erasmus, Onderzoek naar zijne 
theologie en zijn godsdienstig gemoedsbestaan, 
Leiden, 1909. 

ie: Erasmus, Inquiry into his theology and his 
personal religious life. 

idem, Het Bijbelsch Humanisme in Nederland, 
Leiden, 1913. 

e.: Biblical Humanism in the Netherlands. 

Mestwerdt, P., Die Anfange des Erasmus. Hu- 
manismus und Devotio moderna (Studien zur 
Kultus und Geschichte der Reformation II), Ti- 
bingen, 1917. 

Murray, R. H., Erasmus and Luther: their Atti- 
tude to Toleration, London, 1920. 

Nichols, F. M., The Epistles of Erasmus, from his 
earliest letters to his fifty-first year, English 
translations with a commentary, t. 3. London, 
1901-1917. 

Nolhac, P. de, Erasme en Italie, Paris, 1888. 

Pastor, L. von—, Geschichte der Papste seit dem 
Ausgang des Mittelalters, 9 vol., Freiburg i. B. 
1899-1923. 

English translation by F. I. Antrobus, R. Kerr, 
London, 1906, etc. 

Renaudet, A., Préréforme et Humanisme 4 Paris, 
1494-1517, Paris, 1916. 

Very important for the spiritual movements 
preceding the Reformation. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 261 


Renaudet, A., Erasme, sa vie et son oeuvre jusqu’en 
1517, d’aprés sa correspondance, Revue historique, 
vol. 111 et 112. 

Seebohm, F., The Oxford Reformers, John Colet, 
Erasmus and Thomas More, 3d edition, Lon- 
don, 1887. 

Smith, Preserved," The Age of the Reformation, 
American Historical Series, New York, 1920. 

Veth, J., and Muller, S., Albrecht Diirers Niederlan- 
dische Reise, 2 vol., Berlin-Utrecht, 1918. 

The second volume gives a general description 
of life and conditions in the Netherlands at 
the beginning of the 16th century. 





1Erasmus, A Study of His Life, Ideals and Place in History, by 
the same author, New York and London 1923, appeared after the 
completion of this volume. 





INDEX 


Abbatis et eruditae collo- 
quium, 145 

Academy, at Venice, 82 

Adagia, 8, 32, 44, 49ss., 54, 
56, 69, 72, 74, 77, 80ss., 
86, 89, 101, 1038ss., 108, 
112, 113, 184, 168, 195, 
197, 218, 220, oan 20l; 
254 

Adrian of Utrecht, 71, 167, 
205 

Advice about declaring war 
on the Turks, 228, 230 

Aeneas Sylvius, 16 

Agesilaus, 53 

Agricola, Rudolf, 9 

Aix-la-Chapelle, 187 

Albert of Brandenburg, 
Archbishop of Mayence, 
178 ss., 184 

Alcala, University of, 120, 
201 

Alcibiades, 122 

Aldington, 102 

Aldus Manutius, Printer at 
Venice, 80ss., 101, 103, 
104, 188 

Aleander, Jerome, 82, 159, 
188, 190, 191, 216, 219, 
234, 238 

Allen, Dr. P. S., 14, 18, 19, 
64n, 117, 191, 223 

Ambrose, Saint, 65, 197 


Amerbach, Boniface, 228, 
237; 201,)202. 88, 
Amerbach, Johannes, 
114 

Ammonius, Andreas, 46, 74, 
86, 100, 102, 106, 109, 
114, 118, 120, 153, 158, 
159, 171 

Amsterdam, 3, 6 

Amsterdam, State Museum 
of, 249 

Anabaptists, 225, 226, 227 

Andrelini, Fausto, 25, 30, 31, 
36, 60 

Annotationes on the N. T. 
by L. Valla, 73, 115 

Antibarbarz, 18, 19, 22, 31, 
70, 131, 132, 249 

Antiquity, Ancients, 51, 52, 
65, 68, 180, 182, 148, 144 

Anti-war writings, 108, 194 

Antwerp, 3, 64, 69, 84, 109, 
117, 119, 152, 198, 233, 
249, 254 

Apocalypse, 135 

Apologiae, 172, 202, 214 

Apophthegmata, 51, 52, 147 

Apostles, 212 

Aquinas, Thomas, 130 

Aretino, Pietro, 144 

Ariosto, Ludovico, 145, 198 

Aristotle, 25, 29, 140, 223 

Arnobius, 197 


105, 


263 


264 : INDEX 


Arras, Bishop of, 71 

Artois, county of, 1 

Ascensian Press, 103 

Asolani, Andrea, 81, 82 

Assche, 103 

Astragalismus, Colloquium, 
145, 245 

Ath, Jean Briard of, 167, 
170, 172, 175 

Augsburg, 180, 222 

Augsburg confession, 228 

Augsburg, Diet of, 228s. 

Augustine, Saint, 22, 23, 65, 
177, 197 

Augustinians, 4, 11, 75, 177 

Aurelius, Cornelius, 13, 16, 
17, 18, 41, 55 

“Auris Catava,” 56 

“Aut regem aut fatuum 
nasci oportere,” Ada- 
gium, 195 


Badius, Josse, printer in 
Paris, 8, 73, 77, 81, 101, 
103 ss., 114, 170 

Balbi, Girolamo, 25 

Barbaro, Ermolao, 25 

Barcelona, Treaty of, 228 

Basilius, 101, 223 

Basle, 105, 108, 110, 112, 113, 
115, 116, 120, 157, 162, 
170, 171, 179, 190, 192 ss., 
210, 231ss., 251 ss. 

Batavia, 56, 57 

Batt, James, 23, 34, 44, 46, 
47, 48, 61 ss., 70, 74, 164 

Bavaria, house of, 2 

Becar, John, of Borselen, 
230 


Beda, Noél, 153, 160, 200, 
201 

Bedier, Noél, see Beda 

Belgium, 57 

Bembo, Pietro, 219 

Bentivogli, 80 

Ber, Louis, 237 

Bergen, Anthony of, Abbot 
of Saint Bertin, 108 

Bergen, Henry of Glimes, 
lord of, bishop of Cam- 
bray, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 
26, 31, 33, 36, 43, 47, 61, 
70 

Bergen op Zoom, 20, 21, 22, 
23; a1 

Berkman, Francis, 105 

Bern, 220 

Berquin, Louis de, 201 

Besancon, 70, 233 

Blount, see Mountjoy 

Boeotians, 55 

Boerio, family, 80 

Boerio, Giovanni Battista, 
77 

Bois-le-Duc, 10, 11 

Bologna, 34, 80, 86, 107 

Bombasius, Paul, 80 

“Bonae literae,” 16, 29, 58, 
68, 131, 168, 175, 176, 
182, 183 ss., 216, 226 

Bonnat, L., 254 

Book-printing, 4, 81, 83ss., 
105 

Boppard, 236 

Borselen, Anna of, Lady of 
Veere, 34, 36, 43, 47, 48, 
61, 70, 79, 163 

Bouts, Dirk, 3 


INDEX 


Boys, Hector, 31 

Brabant, duchy of, 1, 2, 3, 
57, 58, 59, 103, 110, 229, 
237 

Brachylogus, 127 

Brandenburg, House of, 178, 
179 

Breughel, Peter, 128, 145 

Brie, Germain de, 122 

Bruges, 3 

Brussels, 3, 21, 22, 61, 116, 
119, 121, 233, 254, 255 

Bucer, Martin, 225 

Bucklersbury, 89 

Budaeus, William, 119, 120, 
122, 123, 153, 158, 159, 
160, 162, 169, 195, 219 

Bulephorus, 217 

Burgundy, county of, 233, 
237 

Burgundy, David of, bishop 
of Utrecht, 19 

Burgundy, duchy, dukes, 
dominions of, 1, 2, 3, 
20, 21, 48, 57, 58, 189, 
191 

Burgundy, wine of, 233 

Buridan, John, 24 

Busleiden, Francis of, Arch- 
bishop of Besancon, 70 

Busleiden, Jerome, 172 

Byzantinism, 130 


Caesar, Julius, 107 

Cajetanus, papal legate, 180 

Calais, 34, 44, 109, 111, 185, 
186, 249 

Calvin, John, 147, 209, 211, 
231, 240 


265 


Calvinists, 256 

Cambray, bishop of, see 
Bergen, Henry of 

Cambray, Treaty of, 228 

Cambridge, 101, 102ss., 106, 
108 

Cambridge, University of, 
112 

Caminade, Augustine Vin- 
cent, 32, 47, 60, 62, 198 

Canossa, Count, 109 

Canterbury, Archbishop of, 
see Warham 

Capito, Wolfgang, 122, 168, 
178, 209, 210 

Careggi, 1382 

Carmelites, 
190 

Carmen alpestre, 77, 111 

Carmen heroicum, 232 

Castiglione, Baldassare, 144 

Catherine of Aragon, Queen 
of England, 213 

Catholicism, 174, 208, 209, 
210, 211, 213, 220 ss., 235, 
244 

Ceremonies, 128s., 212s. 

Cervantes, Miguel, 198 

Chaldean literature, 83 

Charles V, 58, 108, 116, 120, 
126, 185, 186, 193, 221, 
228 ss. 

Charnock, Richard, 39 

Chodowiecki, Daniel, 256 

Chrysostom, 197, 223 

Church, Erasmus’ concep- 
tion of the, 130 

Cicero, 16, 27, 130, 
216 ss. 


174, 175, 184, 


132, 


266 


Ciceronianus, 215 
Classicism, 10, 15, 17, 43, 49, 
50, 58, 175, 215 ss. 
Claudian, 16 
Clement VII, Pope, 234 
Clyfton, William (?), 80 
Colet, John, 36ss., 63, 68, 72, 
74, 101, 102, 103, 112, 
115, 117, 122, 132, 155, 
179, 184, 196, 230 
Collegium, Trilingue, 172 
Colloquia, 27, 33, 39, 48, 50, 
51, 54, 67, 82, 99, 128, 
132, 185, 1387, 145, 152, 
168, 164, 194, 198 ss., 202, 
205, 212, 218, 217,223 
Colloquium senile, 133 
Cologne, 3, 70, 185, 187, 198 
Common Life, Brethren, 
brotherhood of the, 4, 9, 
10, 14, 26 
Compendium, De origine et 
gestts Francorum, by 
Robert Gaguin, 30, 37 
Constance, 214, 220 
Constantine, Emperor, 130 
Convivium profanum collo- 
quy, 198 
Convivium religiosum, col- 
loquy, 132, 133, 146 
Cop, William, 63, 77, 119 
Copia verborum ac verum, 
de, 33, 51, 102, 104, 105, 
146 
Cornelius, Gerard, see Aure- 
lius 
Council of the Church, 229, 
234 ss. 
Counter Reformation, 69 


INDEX 


Courtebourne, 63 

Courtray, 117 

Cracow, 198 

Cracow, Bishop of, 237 

Cratander, Printer at Basle, 
108 

Cretans, 91 

Cumae, 85 

Curtius, 91 

Cusa, Nicholas of, Cardinal, 
83 

Cyprian, 197, 223 

Czech language, 69 


Dante, 130 

Decius, 91 

Declamationes, 71, 8 

Delft, 11 

Democrit, 97, 198 

Denk, Hans, 225 

Desiderius, taken as a name 
by Erasmus, 8 

Deventer, 4, 8, 9, 10, 11, 15, 
60, 62, 198, 235 

“Devotio moderna,” 4, 14, 
16, 25 

Diogenes, 101 

Dionysius, 53 

Dirks, Vincent, 175, 190, 200, 
202 

Disputatiuncula de_ tedio, 
pavore, tristicia Jesu, 
39 

Dogmatics, 212, 213 

Dominicans, 4, 24, 128, 174, 
184, 190 

Dordrecht, 3, 6 

Dorp, Martin van, 98, 119, 
162, 167, 170, 172 


INDEX 


Dover, 44, 49 

Drama, Greek, 133 

‘Dulce bellum inexpertis,” 
Adagium, 108, 194 

Diirer, Albrecht, 189, 190, 
240, 254 ss. 

Dutch language, 54, 69, 238 

Dutchmen, 55ss., 71, 74, 79, 
119, 167, 195, 208 

Dyck, Anthony van, 256 


Ebrardus, 127 

Ecclesiae concordia, De 
amabilt, 212, 230 

Beclesiastes, 146, 200, 230 ss., 
236 

Eck, Johannes, 125, 180 

Education, 136 

Edward III, King of Eng- 
land, 43 

Egmondanus, Nicholas, 153, 
170, 175, 188, 190, 205 

Egnatias, Baptista, 82 

Elegantiae latinae linguae, 
by Lorenzo Valla, 16, 33 

Eltham, palace, 37, 85 

Emmaus, see Steyn 

Emperors, German, 2 

Empire, German, 2, 186, 189, 
221 

Enchiridion militis  chris- 
tiant, 6488., 73, 112, 125, 
168, 171, 213, 214, 230, 
231, 240 

England, 3, 33, 34, 36ss., 61, 
63, 69, 70, 74, 75, 77, 84, 
100, 101, 102, 106, 107, 
108, 109, 110, 113, 115, 
116, 118, 120, 121, 126, 


26% 


160, 161, 167, 168, 172, 
173, 185, 186, 193 

England, panegyric on, 37, 
86 

Epicureans, 133 

Epigrammata, 77 

Epimenides, 28 

Episcopius, Nicholas, 237 

Epistolae obscurorum vtro- 
rum, 119, 123 

Epistols, De conscribendss, 
33, 123 

Eppendorf, Heinrich of, 159, 
203 

“Hrasmiani,’ 125 

“Hrasmistas,” 202 

Erasmius, 8 

Eschenfelder, 
236 

Esu carnium, de interdicto, 
200, 210 

Euripides, 75, 77, 81, 104 

Evangelicals, 223 ss., 227 ss. 

Everaert, Nicholas, 250 

Exomologesis, 200, 212, 214 


Christopher, 


Faber Stapulensis, see Le- 
févre d’Etaples 
Familiarium colloquorum 
Formulae, 33, 53, 198 
Farel, Guillaume, 211, 212 
Fasting, 128, 211, 213 
Fathers of the Church, 38, 
61, 65, 180, 196, 212 
Ferdinand, Archduke, King 
of the Romans, 59, 221 
Ficino, Marsilio, 25 
Filelfo, 16 


268 . INDEX 


Fisher, John, Bishop of 
Rochester, 74, 101, 117, 
153, 230, 234 

Fisher, Robert, 32, 33, 43 

Flanders, county of, Flem- 
ings, 1, 2, 3, 57, 58 

Flodden, 106 

Florence, 79 

Florentius, 118 

Foxe, Richard, Bishop of 
Winchester, 74, 75 

France, Frenchmen, 2, 3, 47, 
57.58. F2) C150 10, ae, 
105, 106, 107, 109, 113, 
119, 120,121; 122,-'126; 
186, 223 

Francis I, King of France, 
119, 126, 184, 185 

Franciscans, 4, 24, 63, 128, 
184 

Fraterhouses, 4, 10 

Free Will, controversy on, 
205 ss. 

Freiburg, 122, 193, 221ss., 
232 ss., 237 

French language, 69, 147 

Friesland, territory of Frisi- 
ans, 1, 4, 57 

Froben, Hieronymus, 232, 
237 

Froben, Johannes, printer at 
Basle, 8, 105, 108, 110, 
113, 114, 115, 171, 183, 
198, 199, 215, 232, 251, 
253 

Froben, Johannes Erasmius, 
8, 199 

Froben, house, 231, 232, 237 

Fruin, Robert, 154 


Fugger, Anthony, 222 
Fugger, house, 179 
Funeral, colloquy, 200 


Gaguin, Robert, 25, 29, 30, 
31, 37, 161 

Gallus, 89 

Gargantua, 97 

Gellius, Aulus, 141 

Genoa, 77 . 

Gerard, Erasmus’ father, 6, 
7, 9, 16 

German language, 54, 69 

Germany, Germans, see Em- 
pire, 2, 3, 5, 102, 103, 105, 
113, 121, 122, 125, 147, 
152) 165; 167,) ia: sae 
179, 184, 189, 202, 208, 
209, 224, 229 

Gerson, Jean, 25 

Ghent, 3, 119, 245 

Gigli, Silvestro, Bishop of 
Worcester, 118 

Gilles, Peter, 84, 109, 117, 
119, 1386, 152, 153, 170, 
234, 249 

Glareanus, Henry, 122 

Glimes, see Bergen, Henry 
of, 20 

Goclenius, Conrad, 253 

Golden Age, 94 

Golden Fleece, 20 

Goths, Gothie, 23, 131 

Gouda, 5, 7, 8, 9, 11, 13, 20, 
26 

Gourmont, Gilles, printer at 
Paris, 100, 101, 103 

Greek language, 7, 9, 38, 43, 
46, 50, 51, 61ss., 68, 70, 


INDEX 


71, 74, 75, 76, 80, 82, 102, 
104, 115, 130, 137, 141, 
160, 172, 243 
Greenwich, 37 
Grey, Thomas, 28, 32 
Grimani, Domenico, Cardi- 
nal, 85, 86 
Grocyn, William, 43, 74 
Groenendael Monastery, 22 
Groningen, 4 
Groote, Geert, 4 
Grunnius, Lambertus, 118 
Guarino, 16 
Guelders, duchy of, 1 
“Gueux,” 246 
Guinegate, 106, 107 


Haarlem, 3, 6, 61, 63, 175, 
190, 245 

Haarlem, Teyler Museum 
at, 256 

Hainault, county of, 1, 2 

Halberstadt, bishopric of, 
178 

Halsteren, 22 

Hammes, 109, 111 

Hampton Court, 249 

_ Hansa, German, 3 

Hapsburg, 21, 58 

Hebrew language and litera- 
ture, 62, 83, 119, 172, 210 

Hecuba, of Euripides, 75 

Hegel, G. W. F., 208 

Hegius, Alexander, 9 

Hellenism, 130 

Hem, Monastery, 17 

Henry, Master, 112 

Henry VII, King of Eng- 
land, 43, 75, 77, 85, 86 


269 


Henry VIII, King of Eng- 
land, 37, 46, 85, 86, 106, 
126, 184, 185, 186, 205, 
232 

Herasmus, 8 

Herder, J. G., 244 

Hermans, William, 13, 16, 
20, 21, 23, 31, 34, 47, 55, 
61, 112 

Hieronymians, see Common 
Life 

Hilary, 197 

Hohenzollern, 178 

Holbein, Hans, 145, 155, 192, 
193, 251 ss. 

Holland, county of, 1, 2, 3, 
4, 5, 23, 31, 33, 34, 55ss., 
60, 74, 75, 110, 112 

Hollanders, 55 ss. 

Hollonius, Lambert, 198 

Homer, 62 

Hoogstraten, Jacob, 185 

Horace, 16, 39, 130, 182, 162 

Humanian, Humanists, 9, 
16, 25, 29, 47, 50, 52, 63, 
68, 72, 113, 121, 122, 130, 
131, 209, 215 ss., 242, 243 

Hutten, Ulrich von, 122, 151, 
153, 160, 165, 178, 188, 
202, 203 

Hyperaspistes, 209, 210 

Hypologus, 217 


Imitatio Christi, 5, 69 

Index expurgatorius on the 
works of Erasmus, 69, 
213 

Indulgences, 179 


270 


Institutio christiant matri- 
moni, 200, 213 

Institutio principis  chris- 
tiant, 116, 171, 193, 230 

Institution of the Christian 
Religion by Calvin, 2381 

Iphigenia of Euripides, 75 

Irenaeus, 197 

Isaiah, 42, 101 

Italians, 55, 58, 72, 109, 121, 
122, 154, 202, 215ss. 

Italy, 9, 16, 25, 33, 35, 43, 
63, 77, 79ss., 100, 102, 
106, 107, 112, 118, 115, 
161, 186, 216 ss. 


James IV, King of Scotland, 
85, 106 

Jerome, Saint, 8, 16, 23, 29, 
61, 65, 73, 103, 104, 107, 
110, 111, 114, 118, 145, 
168, 197, 212, 242 

Jonson, Ben, 198 

Judaicism, 66, 68 

Julius II, Pope, 74, 79ss., 
107, 117 

Julius exclusus, 
164, 194 

Juvenal, 16 


107, 108, 


Kalkoff, P., 181 

Kappel, 228, 229 
Karlstadt, Andreas, 180 
Kempis, Thomas A, 5, 69 
Kent, 102 

Keyzer, Hendria de, 257 
Kiefl, F. X., 209 

Kohler, Walter, 225 
Kulm, bishop of, 253 


INDEX 


Lang, John, 180, 181, 183 

Lascaris, Johannes, 82 

Lasco, Johannes a, 237 

Lateran Council, 118 

Latin language and litera-~ 
ture, 15, 17, 18, 23, 25, 
29, 33, 49ss., 52, 53, 54, 
55, 63, 68, 70, 75, 84, 
102, 104, 114, 127, 131, 
137, 147, 163, 172, 198, 
215 ss., 239, 243 

Latomus, James, 170, 172, 
190 

Laus stultitiae, see More 
Encomium 

Lausanne, 220 

Lee, Edward, 153, 157, 164, 
171ss., 180, 185, 201 

Lefévre d’Etaples, Jacques, 
25, 29, 153, 154, 169 ss. 

Leipsic, 198 

Leipsic, disputation of, 180 

Leipsic, University of, 176 

Leo X, Pope, 85, 118, 119, 
171, 175, 178, 183, 184, 
187 

Le Sauvage, John, 116 

Letters of Erasmus, 51, 
123 ss., 197 

Leyden, 3, 6, 13 

Leyden, Lucas of, 256 

Libanius, 71, 89 

libero Arbiirio diatribe, de, 
206 ss. 

Lille, 3 

Lily, College of the, at Lou- 
vain, 167, 172, 190 

Linacre, Thomas, 43, 74 

Lincei Gallery, at Rome, 249 


INDEX 


Lingua, 99, 146, 200 

Lives, by Plutarch, 82 

London, 75, 89, 101, 104, 108, 
109, 118, 185, 198 

Longford Castle, 249 ss. 

Longolius, Christopher, 58, 
218, 219 

Lopsen, monastery, 13 

Louvain, 3, 58, 64, 70, 71, 72, 
99, 117, 119, 120, 121 ss., 
152, 157, 161, 166 ss., 198, 
200, 202, 204, 221, 223, 
233 

Louvain, University of, 2, 
70, 71, 113, 166 ss., 226 

Louvre, 252, 254 

“Low Countries,” see 
Netherlands, 2, 58, 69 

Loyola, Ignatius, 240, 241, 
245 

Liibeck, 32 

Lucan, 16 

Lucea, 74 

Lucian, 75, 77, 89, 102, 104 

Lucubrationes, 68, 69 

Luther, Martin, 54, 69, 122, 
147, 153, 164, 165, 173, 
176, 177ss., 202, 204ss., 
214, 221, 224, 226, 228, 
240, 243, 245 

Lutherans, 204, 226, 227 

Liitzelburger, Hans, 253 

Lypsius, Martin, 160, 171 

Lyra, Nicholas of, 73 


Machiavelli, Niccolo, 91, 116 
Maertensz, Dirck, printer at 
Antwerp and Louvain, 
64, 84, 114, 117, 172, 198 


271 


Magdalen College, Oxford, 
39 

Magdeburg, archbishopric 
of, 178, 179 

“Magistri nostri,” 28, 129 

Mammetrectus, 127 

Marburg, Colloquy of, 228 

Margareta, Erasmus’ mother, 
6, 7, 8,9 

Marriage, Ideas on, 137 

Martial, 16, 56 

Mary of Hungary, Regent 
of the Netherlands, 213, 
237 

Mathurins, 25 

Maximilian, Emperor, 106, 
108, 126, 180, 222 

Mayence, archbishopric of, 
178, 179, 198 

Mechlin, 21, 26, 233 

Medici, family, 132 

Medici, John of, see Leo X 

Melanchthon, Philip, 185, 
194, 209, 226, 229, 245 

Metsys, Quentin, 117, 249 ss. 

Meuse, river, 5, 20, 57 

Michelangelo, 240 

Middelburg, 3, 47, 121 

Middle Ages, 53, 147, 148 

Moderns (term of scholas- 
ticism), 24 

Moliére, 145 

Monks, 128 

Montaige, Michel EKyguem 
de, 91, 132, 138, 198 

Montaigu, College of, 26, 27, 
31, 32 

Moralia by Plutarch, 82, 132 


272 


More, Thomas, 36, 43, 44, 
74, 84, 88, 89, 97, 100, 
101, 117, 123, 132, 136, 
153, 162, 164, 179, 186, 
188, 195, 196, 232, 234, 
249 ss. 

Moriae Encomium, Praise 
of Folly, 67, 85, 87, 88 ss., 
101, 103, 104, 112, 119, 
125, 145, 155, 162, 167, 
174, 197, 199, 200, 212, 
214, 217, 251 

Mountjoy, William Blount, 
Lord, 34, 35, 36ss., 43, 
44, 45, 46, 49, 74, 86, 
100, 109, 111, 112, 120, 
234 

Murray, R. H., 208 

Musurus, Marcus, 82 

Mutianus, Conrad, 209 

Myconius, Oswald, 251 

Mysticism, 129 


Nemur, county of, 1 

Naples, 85 

Navarre, College of, at 
Paris, 25 

Netherlands, 1, 2, 5, 20, 
57ss., 70, 71, 109, 110, 
116, 118, 119, 120, 167 ss., 
189, 190, 191, 193, 205, 
223, 233, 237, 245 ss., 254 

New Testament, 73, 103, 107, 
110, 114, 115, 119, 126, 
135, 145, 166, 167 ss., 178, 
190, 197, 201, 210, 214, 
223 

New York, Metropolitan 
Museum in, 253 


INDEX 


Noctes atticae, 141 
Northoff, Christian, 32, 33 
Northoff, Henry, 32, 33 
Nosoponus, 217, 218 
Novum Instrumentum, see 
New Testament 
Nuremberg, 120, 250 
Nuremberg, religious peace 
of, 229 


Obrecht, Johannes, 79 

Ockam, William of, 24 

Oecolampadius, John, 200, 
211, 213, 220ss., 229, 243 

Old Testament, 178 

Orange, William of, 245, 246 

Oratio de pace et discordia, 
194 

Origenes, 232, 236 

Orleans, 47, 60, 61 

Ovid, 16 

Oxford, 37ss., 107 

Oxford, University of, 112 


Pace, Richard, 203 

Padua, 85 

Paganism, 216 ss. 

Palissy, Bernard, 133 

Paludanus, Johannes, 167 

Panegyric, Philip le Beau, 
7a 

Parabolae, 50, 114, 147 

Paracelsus, 147 

Paraphrases of the New 
Testament, 197, 212, 214, 
250, 252 

Parc, Monastery, 73 

Paris, 2, 8, 23, 24ss., 43s8s., 
47, 60, 63, 70, 71, 72, 74, 
77, 100, 101, 102, 103, 


INDEX 


105, 119, 120, 123, 198, 
202, 252 

Paris, University of, 24ss., 
226 

Parma, 253 

“Patria,” meaning of, with 
Erasmus, 58 

Paul III, Pope, 234 ss. 

Pausanias, 82 

Pavia, 80 

Pencz, George, 253 

Peripatetics, 144 

Persius, 16 

Pestalozzi, J. H., 244 

Peter, Erasmus’ brother, 7, 
11, 12 

Petrarch, 52, 62, 130 

Petrograd, 253 

“Philantia,” 90 

Philip le Beau, Archduke, 
71 

Philip II, King of Spain, 256 

Philippi, John, printer at 
Paris, 74 

Philoxenus, 134 

Phrygians, 53 

Pico della Mirandola la, 
Giovanni, 25 

Pilgrimages, 128 

Pindar, 82 

Pio, Alberto, Prince of 
Carpi, 99, 202, 212 

Pirekheimer, Wilibald, 120, 
209, 234, 250, 251, 254s. 

Plato, 38, 48, 65, 96 

Platonism, 25, 29 

Platter, Thomas, printer at 
Basle, 231 

Plautus, 42, 82 


273 


Plotinus, 38 

Plutarch, 28, 82, 102, 113, 
130, 132 - 

Plutus, 97 

Poems, Latin, by Erasmus, 
Vial ges, ALL oe 

Poetry, Latin, 16, 17, 18, 21, 
39, 175 

Poggio, 16, 215 

Political ideas of Erasmus, 
194 ss. 

Poliziano, Angelo, 141 

Poncher, Etienne, Bishop of 
Paris, 119, 122 

Popedom, 180, 184 

Porrentruy, 221 

Praeparatione ad mortem 
de, 230 

Praise of Folly, see Moriae 
Encomium 

Pratse of Marriage, 172 

Praise of Medicine, 152 

Praise of Monastic Life, 13 

Premonstratensians, 73 

Primacy of St. Peter, 206 

Princes, 195 

Principe, tl, of Machiavelli, 
116 

Pronuntiatione, de, 146, 215, 
254 

Propertius, 16 

Protest of 1529, 227 

Protestantism, 244, 245 

Psalms, commentaries on,. 
197 

Publishing, 32 

Puerpera, colloquium, 145 

Puritate, Fcclesiae  chris- 
tianae, de, 236 


274 . 
Pythagoras, 111 


Queen’s College, Cambridge, 
101 

Querela pacts, 194 

Quintilian, 16 


Rabelais, Francois, 28, 54, 
90, 97, 132, 136, 146, 198 

Radnor, Earl, 249 

Ratio verae theologiae, 146, 
214 

Ratione studi, de, 33 

Realism, 146 ss. 

Reform of the Church, 25 

Reformation, 67, 168 ss., 176, 
181ss., 204ss., 210ss., 
214, 219 ss., 223, 242 ss. 

Reformers, 245 

Renaissance, 52, 80, 89, 97, 
131, 132, 144, 146, 147 

“Renascentia,” 141, 144 

Renaudet, A., 64 

Reuchlin, Johannes, 
119, 165, 185 

Revolution, French, 242 

Rhenanus, Beatus, 50, 81, 
105, 122, 153, 198, 224, 
234, 237 

Rhine, river, 3, 114 

Riario, Raffaelle, Cardinal, 
85 

Ritualism, 66 

Roger, see Servatius 

Roman Empire, 53 

Rombout, 10 

Rome, 20, 21, 23, 73, 85, 86, 
102, 109, 110, 112, 119, 
124, 193, 205 


114, 


INDEX 


Roterodamus, surname of 
Erasmus, 8 

Rotterdam, 5, 6, 13, 122, 256 

Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 94, 
154, 243, 244 

Ruffinus, 118 


Ruysbroeck, 22 


Sadolet, James, Cardinal, 
118, 119, 209, 219, 224, 
245 

Saint Agnietenberg, 5 

Saint Andrews, 85 

Saint Bertin, 61, 63, 108 

Saint Cassianus, 214 

Saint Christopher, 129 

Sainte Genevieve, abbey of, 
27 

Saint Erasmus, 7 

Saint Lebuin, school of, 8 

Saint Mary’s College, Ox- 
ford, 39 

Saint Omer, 34, 63 

Saint Paul, Epistles, 38, 42, 
64, 66, 68, 96, 111, 136, 
169, 177 

Saint Peter, 203 

Saint Sebastian, 159 

Saint Stephen’s Chapel, 120 

Saints, Veneration of the, 
128 s., 213 

Salisbury, 249 

Sallust, 16 

Santa Teresa, 240 

Sapidus, John, 125 

Sasboud, 19 

Saxony, Frederick, elector 
of, 177, 182, 184, 187 


INDEX 


Saxony, George, duke of, 
120, 205 

Saxony, House of, 178 

Scaliger, Julius Caesar, 219 

Scandinavia, 3 

“Scarabeus aquilam quaerit,” 
195 

Sceptics, 148 

Scheldt, river, 5, 20 

Schmalkalden, League of, 
229 

Scholasticism, 24, 27, 28, 51, 
129, 139 

Schiirer, Matthias, printer at 
Strassburg, 114 

Scotch, 106 

Scotists, 24, 27, 28 

Scotland, 3 

Scotus, Johannes Duns, 27, 
28 

Scripture, Holy, 42, 62, 65, 
68, 73, 141 ss., 148, 173 ss., 
206, 210, 243, 244 

Secundus, Janus, 250 

Seneca, 83, 104, 114, 139 

Senectute, De, by Cicero, 
132 

Sentimental friendship, 14 

Servatius Roger, 13, 14, 15, 
74, 75, 78, 79, 111, 118, 
124, 153 

Servo Arbitrio, De, 207 

Shakespeare, William, 240 

Shipwreck, The, Colloquy, 
57 

Sicily, 116 

Siena, 85 

Sion, Monastery of, 11, 14 

Sixtin, John, 39 

Sluter, Claus, 3 


275 


Socrates, 122, 132 

Solon, 111 

Sorbonne, College of, at 
Paris, 25, 28, 63, 201 

Spain, Spaniards, 3, 71, 120, 
121, 126, 147, 154, 167, 
186, 201, 202, 240, 256 

Spalatinus, George, 177, 178 

Spanish language, 69 

Speyer, Diet of, 221, 227 

Spliigen, 86 

Spongia adversus asrersiones 
Hutteni, 203 

Stadion, Christopher of, 
bishop of Augsburg, 231 

Standonck, John, 25, 26, 27, 
47 

Statius, 16 

Stewart, Alexander, Arche 
bishop of Saint Andrews, 
85, 106, 250 

Steyn, Monastery of, 11, 12, 
13, 14, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 
54, 60, 75, 76, 111, 117 

Stoics, 144 

Strassburg, 101, 105, 120, 198 

Stunica, Diego Lopez Zu- 
fliga, 201 

Suetonius, 182 

Swiss soldiers, 60 

Switzerland, Swiss, 86, 122, 
147, 220, 228, 229 

Synthen, Johannes, 9 


Talesius, Quirin, 234, 245 
Tapper, Ruurd, 175 
Terence, 16, 82 
Terminists, 24 

Terminus, 250 


276 


Thames, 109 

Théléme, abbey of, 1382 

Therouanne, 106 

Thessalians, 53 

Thomists, 24 

Tibullus, 16 

Tournay, 106, 116 

Tournehem, castle of, 34, 61, 
64 

Translations 
Works, 69 

Trazegnies, John of, 64 

Trinitarians, 25, 29 

Tunstall, Cuthbert, 74, 122, 
169, 205 

Turin, 79 

Turks, 196, 228 


Utenheim, Christopher of, 
bishop of Basle, 210, 219, 
220 

Utenhove, Charles, 234, 245 

Utopia, 97, 117, 132, 136, 249 

Utrecht, bishop of, see Bur- 
gundy, David of, 2, 19 

Utrecht, bishopric of, 1, 4 

Utrecht, see Adrian, 8, 9 


Valla, Lorenzo, 16, 33, 73, 
115 

Veere, see Borselen, 61 

Venice, 80ss., 103, 105, 113, 
188, 246 

Vesalius, Andreas, 147 

Vianen, William of, 175 

Vidua christiana, 200, 213 

Vienna, 59, 198, 228, 253 

Vincent, Augustine, see Ca- 
minade 

Vinci, Leonardo da, 147 

Virgil, 16, 132 


of Erasmus’ 


INDEX 


Vitrier, Jean, 63 s., 230 
Vives, Juan Luis, 204, 209 
Voecht, Jacobus, 47 
Voltaire, 242 

Vulgate, 38, 73, 115, 141, 142 


Wadden Islands, 57 

Warham, William, Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury, 
74, 75, 86, 102, 117, 121, 
234, 252 

Watson, John, 125 

Westminster, 120 

Westphalia, 4 

Wimpheling, Jacob, 101, 210 

Winckel, Peter, 9, 10 

Windesheim, Monastery, 
congregation of, 4, 5, 
14, 26 

Windsor, 253 

Wittenberg, University of, 
177, 226 

Wolsey, Thomas, Cardinal, 
39, 120, 175, 185 

Worms, Diet of, 189 


Ximenes, Cardinal, 120, 167, 
201 


Ysel, river, 1, 4 


Zasius, Ulrich, 122, 195, 209, 
237 

Zealand, county of, 1, 2, 3, 
57 

“Zum Luft,” house at Basle, 
233 

Zufiga, see Stunica 

Zwingli, Ulrich, 122, 214, 225, 
229, 243 

Zwinglians, 227, 228 

Zwolla, 4, 5 


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